OOC: I moved this from Spacebattles and I'm keeping the first few actions. Hope you don't mind.
You wake up in the bed. It’s warm and comfortable. The soothing appeal of these strangely velvety, cotton sheets lure you further into its many folds. But your body acts differently. It’s time to wake up and through motions almost too mechanical to be human, you rise and step off of your bed. After you have already washed up and followed through the day, you realized something particular.
This isn’t your house.
This isn’t your room.
This isn’t your bed.
This isn’t your… body.
You are tiny; this body you are in is small even for its age. It is the body of a tiny Asian girl. It’s more graceful than yours, and far more flexible. Almost automatically, you walk out into the courtyard and begin going through many forms of certain styles of Chinese martial arts. Your body is fluid and flows thusly… easily.
As you follow through with whirling stabs and kicks, palms striking and knees thrusting in your deathly dance, you take time to admire the scenery. This house is huge. It could be called a manor, though barely anyone would have one this size. Just the maintenance of such a thing would be tremendous.
Half way through your crisp, clean forms, another girl joins in. She looks at you shyly before trying to keep up with your actions. Before long, she falls behind and begins to falter. You do not stop to help her.
She slows down, but you do not. As she falls to the ground, panting even as her knees scrapped into the earth, you do not stop to help her. She seems to be on the verge of tears, but then she stands back up and tries again, with renewed vigor.
After a moment, a soft clap echoes into the courtyard.
“Wonderful, my daughters,” a rich, baritone voice echoed from the balcony. You look up and see an elegant gentleman swirling a glass of rich, red wine. From the brown coloration that you could see from below, you could tell that the drink was rare and expensive. The man claps again, “As expected from my daughters, the future of the Tohsaka House. You are both doing well. Now come in and clean up. Your mother has prepared breakfast, so do not dally and make her wait, my daughters.”
This powerful body at the peak of human performance of this age, the rich house and fabulously dressed father, and the name Tohsaka… From the looks of it, you know exactly what you are. You, as a collective, have landed in the mind of Tohsaka Rin, a tragic genius who will face many more tragedies in the near future.
After cleaning up and breakfast...:
After breakfast, whatever force it was that guided your body was gone. All you had left now is your own control. Something was still fighting within you, to keep you walking gracefully and steadily. Something was within that kept analyzing, but she could not see what you thought. It was like a one way mirror and you needed her. Without that force… you would be unable to be Tohsaka Rin.
So you glided to Tohsaka Sakura, whose eyes widened as you approached. She smiled at you shakily and bowed her head slightly, “Hello, nee-san. H-how are you?” She asked in confusion.
As you dug into your mind, memories of the past filtered into the surface. Images seen through the eyes of a young Rin as she studied her reading materials for elementary school as hard as she could. She was honest in her effort to prove herself to herself. That lack of focus that you have currently upsets her, though she still endures it because she could not speak up against you for some reason and she was curious. You saw an inkling in her mind, that if you proved to be unworthy or hostile, she would attempt in any and every way to rid her mind of you.
“I am fine, Sakura,” you heard yourself say. “But how I am does not matter. I am worried for you…” You began.
Before you could speak anymore, you were cut off as heavy footsteps sounded behind you. It was Father, and he only allowed you to hear his steps when he was upset by something. You looked around and saw him at the top of the stairs, looking down at you, “Sakura, go talk to your kaa-san. Rin, come and follow me.”
Shakily, Sakura scurried away.
You followed Father up the stairs and into one of the older laboratories. It was one of the cruder research rooms that Father often used to teach you magecraft. But none of the equipments were out. Father did not look like he was prepared to give a lesson in magecraft. He looked into your eyes kindly and asked, “Rin, what does a magus walk beside?”
“A magus must walk beside death,” you replied like reading from a textbook. The words flowed from your mouth like water. It was a much repeated phrase that even Rin’s body remembered.
Father nodded and then asked, “And what must a magus control?”
“A magus must control their emotions,” you replied again.
“Very good,” Father seemed to smile. “Do you know why I tell you this?”
The young Rin within did not, but she guess all sorts of fantastical reasons. But you knew what he was getting at. Your realization was so quick, that even the Rin within noticed it… and her shock was evident. Even Father saw your eyes widen in surprise. “B-because…”
Father looked on, making no moment.
“Because…” You whispered with your voice shaky, “A magus must be prepare to kill any foe, even if it is their relative.”
“That’s right, my daughter,” Father smiled gently as he patted your head. “Now then, are you ready for your lessons today?”
You could feel the inner Rin’s confusion as she walked up to the area in her Father’s atelier that was prepared for her to study. She felt awkward, because she felt conflict from you over something that never bothered her before. You could almost feel her frowning, and you could hear her thinking to herself, “Why should I be worried? What is going to happen to Sakura that is so dangerous?”
But a moment later, as you walked up to your work desk, both Rin and you pushed the thought aside. What happens to Sakura couldn’t be too important anyway. What’s necessary is to focus on the now…
As you pushed prana with Rin, a strange, interesting thing happened. Rin did not feel it, but you did. She continued to focus on her pushing prana into the quartz jewel in front of her, but you…
You…
You felt pain beyond what could be called pain. It was pain of the very soul—as your magic circuits that were long since dormant suddenly were shot open. You with your collective, with your hundreds of souls, all screamed in blood-chilling agony that only you could hear. Imagine swimming in a sea of acid, as burning needles stabbed through every pore of your being, coming out the other side only to swirl around and stab again. And again. And again. Imagine this happening for what seems to be minutes, then hours, then days, then weeks, months, years, decades, millenniums…
…Then you, with your entire collective, passed out within little Rin’s mind. It was a good thing that she controlled your prana output with her subconscious, else you would have had your souls flayed into oblivion, only to be recycled by the world anew.
When little Tohsaka Rin tucked herself in that night, blushing as Mommy kissed her good night and shutting her eyes tightly in hopes of embracing a new day, she did not know what awaited her in her mind. Within her dreams, you woke up. All some three hundred of you regained consciousness at the same time, around the confused girl’s mind. Within that dream where nothing made sense, Rin cried in fear as you all appeared.
But to her, you were all ghastly phantoms, too blurred and too weak to be seen. Separated and divided, you are only gaseous ghosts who are unable to make any motions or sounds. However, together, you are more than enough to take hold of young Rin and whisper into her ears.
As you rallied, in that single moment, Rin turned to you and you saw into her eyes what she saw. It was enough to shatter your temporary resolve as much as cause Rin to resume screaming louder than before. You saw in her eyes…
…her. Three hundred or more of herself. Or are they yourself? She is you and you are she. Are you all but one being now? That seems to be the case, but you are no expert…
“Calm down,” You say, and you heard your voice echoed hundreds of times in an instant. You say it as if you were saying it many times at the same time. A hive-mind collective that you are, you all aim for one goal: to help Rin settle down.
“A-are you me?” She asked tentatively and curiously. She approached you in this unreality and attempted to touch you. But within a dream, things don’t… make sense. One moment you were conversing so quickly, yet the next nothing seemed to have happened. “I…”
And then you woke up.
You went through the same motions again today. You excelled at martial arts, practicing your art of conscious, bodily control. With so many minds monitoring the same thing, your breathing and walking abilities are what young Rin alone could not achieve. Still, it was not so extraordinary that you earned anything more than a passing compliment from Poppa.
Sakura fell during the exercise today. When she did not pick herself up, Father scolded her and told you to continue. Father seemed to think that Sakura could keep going, but was limiting herself because she believed she couldn’t do it. Young Rin did not know exactly how that worked, because she believed in her own hard work.
Later at breakfast, Mommy said, “It is Saturday. Would you like to go to the park?” She asked this while looking at Sakura and you, but her eyes constantly flickered to Father.
After sipping his wine (Father seems to be drinking wine all the time, is he an alcoholic?), Father said, “Why don’t we leave it up to the girls what they want to do today? Well, Rin? …Sakura? Do you want to study magic today? Or do you want to go to the park? Or something else?”
“Otou-san, alcohol isn’t good for your head,” You said sweetly.
Poppa seemed to fumble for a moment before he regained his composure. In this time, Mommy shushed you gently and tried to tell you that you shouldn’t tell your Poppa what to do, but Poppa interrupted. “Thank you, Rin,” he said, “However, I drink the alcohol slowly and my mind is not clouded by it. It does help dull the… Well, you don’t need to worry for me.” As an afterthought, he added, “Why don’t you go to the park. I… Otou-san needs to work.”
With that, he left.
“Rin,” Mommy said worriedly, “Your father doesn’t feel well, that’s why he drinks. When we come back, apologize to him, alright?”
Little Rin immediately responded before you could even think about what this meant. Was Tokiomi injured, that he needed to drink to dull the pain? You nodded fervently, “Yes, Okaa-san.”
“Good, now why don’t we go to the park,” Mommy asked. “Would you like that too, Sakura? The sun is out today and the weather looks lovely.”
Sakura nodded meekly.
Mommy drove you to the park. You played with Sakura in the sun, with the other kids in the park too, while Mommy watched. Whenever you turned to look at her, she would wave and smile at you kindly. The little Rin within thought it was a little embarrassing, but you could feel Mommy’s love almost tangibly wrap around you like a warm embrace. It was… overwhelming, how much she cared for you.
There was a creepy man in a hoodie watching Sakura and you play too. Little Rin wasn’t too worried; it’s just some random pedophile, probably.
When you returned to home, you immediately ran up to Poppa and apologized for questioning him earlier today. He patted you gently on the head and said, “Don’t worry about it, Rin. I know you care for me, that’s why you asked, right?”
“Um!” You nodded in affirmation.
“That’s my girl,” He smiled at you. “Why don’t you choose what you want to learn today, since you’re such a good girl?” He took out a book and showed you the table of contents, “You can choose anything here.”
[ ] Magic Circles
[ ] Incantations
[ ] Thaumaturgical Theory
[ ] Something Else
Reply With Quote
Originally Posted by asterism42
