The Butterfly Effect [Fate/Stay Night] [Fate/Zero]

Un [The Beginning of the End]

"Why are you giving this to me?"

"Do you not want it?"

You grimaced and glanced away from her. "I didn't say that, Rin. I just meant that this is something precious to you. Why give it to me then?"

Rin Tohsaka smiled at you, closing your outsretched hands. "And you are also something precious to me, [Name]. That's why I want you to have it. Can you keep it safe for me?"

Suddenly, you clenched your jaw in order to subside the choking down of your muffled sobs. "Of course," you told your cousin quietly. You hugged her as tightly as you could, clutching her gift. Perhaps it would be the last thing you would have of her. Her momento, in other words. You should have known.

The Holy Grail War. A blood bath of seven master and servant pairs warring until one stands victorious. Or, at least, that is what it is meant to be. No one has ever truly won the grail and been granted their mortal or ethereal wish in the past, even with five wars having taken place. Was the Grail even meant to be won? Or was it just a dream that every young or desperate mage had? Perhaps both.

Perhaps neither.

~

It wasn't until you were in your mid twenties that you came to realize why Rin had given you her gift.

She was a full-fledged mage now, the Clock Tower of London now her permanant residence. You, the only other heir to the Tohsaka family, were left in charge of the Tohsaka Estate. Though Rin had taught you what she could about magecraft when you visited her in London, you were left to teach yourself to art of magic. You had only been fifteen when Rin had graduated high school and took on Shirou Emiya as her apprentice, and when she had given you the gift. Since then, it had been ten years. Ten years. Had it truly been that long?

"Silver and iron to the origin. Gem and the archduke of contracts to the cornerstone."

"The Holy Grail War taught me a lot of things, [Name]."

"Oh? Like what?"

"The ancestor is my great master Schweinorg. The alighted wind becomes a wall."

"Like learning to trust in others. Knowing your own limits. Differentiating between right and wrong."

"The gates in the four directions close, coming from the crown, the three forked road that leads to the kingdon circulate. Fill. Fill. Fill. Fill. Fill. Repeat five times. Simply, shatter once filled."

"Wouldn't regular life have taught you that too, Rin? Did you really need to fight a war in order to learn those things?"

"I announce. Your self is under me, my fate is in your sword. In accordance with the approach of the Holy Grail, if you abode this feeling, this reason, please answer. Here is my oath."

"I suppose you're right about that. But it wouldn't have been nearly as much fun."

"I am the one who becomes all the good of the world of the dead, I am the one who lays out all the evil of the world of the dead."

"Is that why you want me to be in the next war?"

"No, [Name]. I want you to be in the next war so that we can destroy the Grail for good."

"You, seven heavens clad in three worlds of power, arrive from the ring of deterrence, O keeper of the balance!"

CRACK!

You yelped in surprise, being thrown back into the various tables of your uncle's magical study. After pulling yourself from the ground and coughing up sawdust and dirt, you blinked a few times to regain your bearings. Had it worked? Had you summoned a Servant? It was 2 o'clock in the morning (you had ensured all the clocks in the house were right, at Rin's advice), you had gotten enough sleep, and you had the gift Rin had given you.