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Rin’s mobile phone went off in the middle of the lecture on magecraft history. She floundered for a moment, desperately trying to find it amidst her books and parchments, before giving up. She escaped the lecture hall and disapproving looks of her classmates, while clutching the still ringing bag. It took her several tense minutes to find the phone and during that time it rang at least two more times.
“What is it?” she hissed, irritated, when she finally managed to answer the call, after fumbling a bit more. The weird sliding motions that she needed to do to unlock the phone or answer the call seemed more mysterious to her than the Root or secrets of magic.
“Oh, it’s good you managed to answer, Rin,” Shirou’s cheerful voice greeted her. He didn’t seem to mind the fact that it took him four calls to reach Rin. “You see, we’ve got in a bit of trouble with Saber and…”
Rin sighed loudly, interrupting him.
“What sort of trouble?”
“We may have witnessed a bank robbery,” Shirou admitted sheepishly. Rin didn’t need to hear anything else to know what happened. She knew better than anyone that Shirou and Saber were physically incapable of ignoring injustice happening right before their eyes.
“How much trouble are you in?” She cut to the chase, hoping that it wouldn’t be too much.
“Ummm, we were taken to police station for now, but I’m pretty sure there are at least two mages who are waiting for an opportunity to have a talk with us,” Shirou admitted, dropping his voice to a whisper.
“Did you use magecraft?” Rin asked feeling the incoming headache. Why was she even asking this question? Of course Shirou used projection to save the bank’s staff.
“Just don’t be angry at Saber,” Shirou begged quietly. “She suggested that we lay low, but then they threatened a child that started crying and before I knew it I projected a sword and gave it to her.”
Rin facepalmed.
“Where exactly are you?” she asked, deciding that this was not a conversation to have through the phone.
*
The police station was quite crowded when Rin finally reached it. Apparently, bank robbery wasn’t the only big crime that happened on this sunny day.
As she stumbled between people, Rin noticed Shirou waving to her. His extremely conspicuous behaviour quickly brought Rin to attention of other people. Including the two mages he had mentioned.
Well, at least Rin could forget about trying to solve the whole thing discreetly.
One of the mages approached her and Rin steeled herself for a lot of explaining.
“Before you ask, yes, those two idiots are with me,” she said, already wishing for the conversation to be over.
*
“And then you attacked the robbers?” the investigator asked.
“Yes, that is correct,” a petite woman with blond hair confirmed calmly.
“Weren’t you afraid that your action might endanger that child?” the man continued.
The woman looked at him, unamused.
“The child was already in danger. I far more feared the outcome of the situation if I merely continued to idly observe.”
The investigator seemed to be caught off-guard by her straightforward reply. He coughed into his hand, trying to regain his footing in the discussion.
“You attacked them with the sword, correct?”
“Yes.”
“It’s prohibited to enter the bank with any sort of weaponry,” he pointed out. “Even if your actions resulted in apprehending the robbers it was illegal to enter with…”
“I didn’t,” Arturia interrupted him calmly.
“Excuse me?”
“There seems to be a misunderstanding. I have not entered the bank carrying any sort of the weapon,” she explained.
“Then where did you get it from?!” the investigator asked, confused.
“I picked it up from the ground,” the woman continued to explain, her face betraying nothing.
“Why was there a sword lying on the ground?!”
Arturia slowly shrugged, maintaining a perfect poker face.
“I have no idea why it was there, but it seemed like a good idea to use it,” she said.
“Swords don’t just appear out of nowhere!” The investigator was shouting at this point, unable to understand the situation.
Arturia made a thoughtful hum.
“There was a fountain in the bank’s lobby, not far from me. Maybe water spirits living there decided to help me protect their dwelling,” she said.
“Swords don’t just appear out of the bodies of water!” the investigator shouted in annoyance.
“On the behalf of the Lady of the Lake, I would like to kindly disagree with you.”
*
Rin, who watched the exchange next to the mage who introduced herself as Jennifer, wasn’t sure whether she should laugh or cry. They were in the small room that allowed them to see the happenings in the interrogation room. The policeman who was supposed to document the interrogation was lying next to them, snoring lightly under the influence of a sleep charm.
“The good news is that nobody saw any actual thaumaturgy,” the woman said to Rin. “So they probably won’t be detained. The bad news is that the little lady’s swordsmanship act was so damn impressive, everyone remembers it very well and the news already leaked to the press.”
“Can we at least make sure she remains anonymous?” Rin asked hopefully. She wanted Arturia to come under as little attention as possible.
“Already ahead of you, kid,” Jennifer said with a huff. “However, we are no miracle workers. Shewill be mentioned in the news and there will be a blurred photo. I would buy her a new coat if I were you.”
“I see,” Rin said. She sighed in relief. She had been worried that the clean-up work would be much more problematic.
As if sensing those hopeful thoughts, Jennifer looked at her sharply.
“However, if I were you, I wouldn’t worry so much about her,” she continued thoughtfully.
“Huh?”
“After all, it’s your disciple who played with magecraft, isn’t it?” Jennifer asked slowly. “And while we could just turn a blind eye to that, I don’t like idea of doing all this cover-up work for nothing. So what do you say that we make a deal?” Her predatory smile left no doubt that this was not an offer that could be refused.
Rin really didn’t like that smile.
*
It was evening when Shirou and Saber finally managed to leave the police station. Rin waited on them, doing some of her homework in the nearby café to pass the time. As they walked home, Rin led the group, huffing slightly. Saber and Shirou trailed behind her apologetically.
Saber was staying quiet, probably not wanting to start a serious conversation in the middle of the road.
Shirou was less patient.
“I’m sorry.”
Rin grunted, not feeling like actually forming words to reply to him.
“I’m sorry I called in the middle of lecture,” Shirou added, hoping to show that he understood his mistakes.
“It would be worse if you tried to handle it alone. You gave me that phone and showed me how to use it so I could help if something happened, didn’t you?” Rin replied flatly, not even turning to look at Shirou.
He nodded hesitantly, surprised by how level her reply was.
“Still, you missed that lecture, sorry.”
“It’s fine. I will get notes from someone. It’s not a difficult subject,” Rin answered, shrugging.
There was silence once more as they walked through the darkening town. The lamps were slowly starting to light up.
“I’m sorry we made trouble for you,” Shirou mumbled. This apology was quieter.
Rin and Saber stopped. Rin finally turned to face her companions and seemed to want to reply, but it was Arturia who spoke.
“Shirou,” she said sternly, demanding his attention. “You should not apologize when you do not feel remorseful. It’s rude.”
Shirou opened his mouth, as if to deny her words, but then quickly closed it.
“You are right,” he said.
Rin sighed.
“I’m not really angry for you for that… incident,” she finally admitted.
Saber and Shirou looked at her with a bit of disbelief.
“Just a bit annoyed that you couldn’t be smarter about it,” she conceded. “I don’t expect you to stand still when children are endangered. That wouldn’t be like you. It’s just…” She paused, searching for words. “Be more subtle next time.”
Saber stepped forward.
“Is there something we can help you with, Rin?” she asked, looking straight at her.
Rin almost stumbled, taken aback by that sudden question.
“Help me?” she repeated.
“You made some sort of deal with mages who followed us, didn’t you?” Saber pointed out.
Shirou looked between them, belatedly catching up on the situation.
“But you said you dealt with… oh…” He paused, realizing what exactly Rin had omitted in her account.
“We don’t want you to bear the burden of our actions alone, so if we can help you any way, please, don’t hesitate to rely on us,” Arturia said.
“Don’t worry, Saber, I didn’t plan to rush into this alone like a certain someone did a month ago,” she added deviously.
“Are you still hung up on that? It’s not like I wanted to spend a full day running away from that stubborn assassin.”
“One phone call. It was all that you needed to do to resolve this misunderstanding!”
“I was afraid he would track you down” Shirou muttered.
“Now, now, there’s no need to bring that back,” Saber said, cutting short the argument.
“Yeah, I learned my lesson! I worked with Arturia this time!” he pointed out, pouting a bit at Rin.
She chuckled.
“Yeah, yeah, you are all grown up, mister Ally of Justice,” she teased.
Shirou momentarily hid in his scarf, embarrassed by this low blow. Arturia seemed too entertained by the antics of her companions to want to interfere this time.
Rin smiled at the two most important people in her life. They smiled back at her.
“Let’s go home.”
*
After they returned home, Shirou immediately occupied the kitchen. Rin couldn’t help feeling that he would probably try to make some amends with his cooking even if it wasn’t his turn to make the dinner.
Uncharacteristically, Saber ventured into kitchen to help him. While Arturia had improved from being pretty useless in the kitchen to occasionally useful after living with Shirou and Rin for some time, she didn’t help much with cooking to maintain the neutrality of the forever ongoing cooking competition between the two of them. In a way, her position as the main food sampler was extremely important in maintaining the peace and tranquillity of the household.
Rin figured that she should give Shirou and Saber some space, so she holed up in her study to work on the paper for mineralogy class that was due in a week. She couldn’t make much headway, as her mind kept returning to today’s events, but at least she managed to stop herself from overthinking the current situation to death. She didn’t let her problems totally overwhelm her! As a heir to the Tohsaka household she had to maintain her dignity and face any obstacles with grace.
Still, when Saber came to fetch Rin for the dinner she found her surrounded by several crumped pieces of parchment and silently screaming into the pillow. It didn’t seem like Rin made much progress on her paper on magical properties of emeralds.
After five minutes and a quick visit to bathroom, Rin joined Saber and Shirou for their late dinner, looking much more composed. The dinner was surprisingly simple and it took Rin a moment to realize that the bank robbery probably had prevented her significant others from buying groceries. Still, Shirou wasn’t a model househusband for nothing. Instead of going for variety like he usually did, he decided to overcome this challenge with quantity, making enough pancakes to feed an army. Or at least a one-man army that was the mythical king of Britain and her two lovers.
Rin half-expected to see some healthy filling to them, but instead found jams, sweet sauces, maple syrup and whipped cream. There was a lone bowl containing chopped apples, which were probably the last fresh fruits in the house. Other than that, today’s dinner was no definition of healthy cooking, but Rin wouldn’t have it any other day. She wanted to drown her troubles in carbs and chocolate sauce.
Shirou waited for her to sit down and then placed a plate before her. There was a lone pancake on it with chocolate sauce. The sauce was used to write “Best Girlfriend” on the pancake and to draw a smiling face with pigtails that was supposed to be a simplified representation of Rin.
It was so sweet Rin was feeling slightly embarrassed to be the one to receive the pancake. It was making her feel stupidly mushy. And maybe causing her a bit of eye irritation, because there was no way she was getting all teary over a fucking pancake.
Apparently her girlfriend and boyfriend had a talent for getting her stupidly sentimental.
She resented that fact much less than she used to in the past.
“Thanks, that’s sweet,” she said, folding the pancake and cutting a part of it. She took a bite and almost spat it out, because there was way more chocolate sauce than she was used to. She grabbed the bowl with apple chunks and dumped some of them on top of her pancake. “It’s sweet.”
“Maybe I should shorten it to just GF next time?” Shirou wondered, as if the fact that the pancake was too sweet due to his thank-you gesture being overly wordy was an actual problem that should be remedied. Rin felt like laughing, but suppressed the urge. Saber made a small hum of acknowledgement, as she calmly compiled an impressive amount of toppings on her pancake.
Rin felt very, very warm just looking at this peaceful dinner scene.
Maybe she should just get it over with.
“They asked me to help dismantle a dangerous group of magic users that seems to be scouting students from Clock Tower. They needed someone to infiltrate them and well, I fit the bill,” Rin admitted slowly, as she continued to cut her pancake into smaller pieces.
“So this was the price,” Shirou mused.
“Honestly, I was afraid it would be something worse,” Rin added with a shrug.
“What are you going to do, Rin?” Saber asked.
“No reason to fight it. They did help clean up our mess. And I’m not opposed to helping deal with scum who prey on young people,” she admitted. The deal wasn’t exactly fair, but Rin knew better than to argue with the terms. They were surprisingly good given just how one-sided the situation was.
“Are you going to be alright?” Shirou asked.
Rin smiled at him, trying to ease his worries.
“It’s fine. Besides,” she trailed, using this pause to chew on her pancake. “Nobody said I have to infiltrate them alone.”
Saber smiled, quickly catching on.
“I’m sure they wouldn’t mind if you joined together with your girlfriend.”
“And boyfriend,” Shirou added quickly, not wanting to be left out of the plan.
“Let’s kick their asses,” Rin announced happily. The three of them cheered and happily returned to the meal talking excitedly about what was to come. They knew that together they would surely overcome any obstacles.