Tohsaka Rin bit down hard on her lipso hard she tasted a faint, rusty sweetness of blood. She didn't look at her mother again. She spun around and bolted for the door like a wounded fawn, never once looking back, vanishing into the morning mist that had yet to lift.
"Rin my child"
Aoi stared after her daughter's resolute back. That look of utter disappointment felt like the cruelest punishment, robbing Aoi of breath.
She sagged against the cold wall, all strength drained from her at once, looking desolate and suddenly old. Two silent tears slipped free and fell onto the breakfast she had so carefully prepared.
From today on, this home might never be the same.
Across town, Matou Zouken's gaze latched onto little Tohsaka Sakura like two cold, clammy tendrils made solid. He split open that mouthlike a black crevice where you could barely see any teethand showed a smile so chilling it could give an adult nightmares.
"Heh-heh" A rasp rattled from his withered throat, like a worn-out bellows forced to pump. It sounded like laughterand like labored breathing.
"So this is your younger daughter, is it, Tokiomi? The Tohsaka family's second girl" His voice was hoarse and shrill, like nails scraping glass, every syllable grating on the teeth. "As expectedexcellent aptitude. A fine seedling. The Tohsaka blood really is superb"
Sakura jolted at the old man's stare and smile, her small teeth chattering with a faint "k-k" sound. A primal, life-deep fear seized her. Instinctively she tried to flee, shrinking back and hiding behind her father, Tohsaka Tokiomi, clinging with all her strength to the neatly pressed hem of his suit jacket.
In that moment, Father was the only driftwood in a storm, the sole barrier against the horror in front of her. She buried her face in the fabric of his rigid back and didn't dare look at the old man again. Her little body shook like a leaf in autumn wind.
But Tokiomi seemed not to feel the terror and dependence overflowing from his daughter behind him. He didn't even shift because she was hiding there. With the calm, formulaic courtesy of one mage to another, he nodded to Matou Zouken and replied in a steady tone:
"Elder Zouken, I entrust my younger daughter Sakura to your care."
Then he angled his body, lowered his head to look at Sakuraclinging to his jacket like a frightened animaland, with the clear, final tone of a verdict that permitted no appeal, he said:
"Sakura, this is the current head of the Matou family, Elder Matou Zouken. He is a venerable senior in the world of magecraft. From today on, he will be your grandfather in the future sense; you will inherit the Matou magic crest, become a rightful member of the Matou house, and study the Matou arts."
He pausedperhaps to let each word sear itself into his daughter's mindand then spoke the cruelest line, the one that severed her from the past completely:
"So your name is no longer Tohsaka Sakura. A surname is a symbol of honor and duty. From this moment, you are Matou Sakura. Remember your new identityand the Matou family's future that you now bear."
!!!
Thunderclaps burst one after another in her skull. A continuous, violent ringing filled Sakura's ears. Her father's voice warped and receded. The sounds, colors, and smells of the world seemed to rush away from her in an instant, leaving a vacuum.
Dad Dad is really giving me to this terrifying old man who looks like the worst villain in a story.
Not only will I leave my only home, my beloved mother and sisternow even my "Tohsaka" surname, the identity that has been with me since birth, is going to be stripped away.
Tohsaka Sakura turned into Matou Sakura?
To her ears, the distance between those two names was like the gap between heaven and hell. One meant sunshine, warmth, Sister's smile, the scent of Mother's embrace. The other meant only this grim mansion, this horrifying old man, and an endless, dark future.
The shock and utter despair surged over her like an icy tsunami, drowning her fragile heart. Thought deserted her. Her small face went as white as first snow, drained of all color. Her beautiful violet pupils dilated, yet her eyes were emptylike polished glass beads reflecting nothing at all.
She stood there, dazed. Her tiny body went rigid like stone; she even forgot how to tremble. It felt as if her soul had been wrenched out of her body by this brutal reality, leaving behind only a shell to face a plunging, endless nightmare of darkness.
If only this were a dream, she thought. If only I could wake up and have everything be the same as before.
Tokiomi flicked a look, signaling Sakura to step toward Matou Zouken. But stunned to the core, she didn't move. Zouken's withered handtaloned like an eagle's, grime lurking beneath the nails, reeking of a strange mix of mildew and ancient spiceswas slowly reaching to touch her slender shoulder.
"Sakura! Don't go!!! Stop!!!"
A screamragged with sobs, gasps, and absolute resolvesplit the suffocating stillness before the Matou gates, knifing through the fog from the far end of the street.
It wasTohsaka Rin!
Chapter 971: To the Rescue!
Rin came rushing over, practically tripping and scrambling as she ran.
Her hair was already a mess. The ponytail that had been neatly tied was half undone. Strands stuck to her temples and cheeks with sweat and tears from an all-out sprint.
Her little face was flushed; her chest heaved as she gulped for air, every breath burning in her lungs.
Her expensive dress was visibly torn at the knees and elbows, exposing skin streaked with blood, and she was caked in dust and mudobvious marks from falling again and again in her desperate run.
She'd even lost one shoe. One foot wore only a grime-stained white sock. She looked utterly bedragglednothing like the composed young lady of the Tohsaka household.
But Rin Tohsaka couldn't care less.
After the shattering answer she got from her mother, she'd shot out like a cannonball, pouring every ounce of strength and speed from her childhood into the run. Relying on the address of the Matou home she'd once secretly looked up, she tore in that direction without a second thought.
She didn't dare stop for even a heartbeat. She didn't dare wonder whether she would make it in time. Only one thought blazed in her mind:
Catch up to Father!
Stop him!
Take Sakura back!
Sakura, big sis will protect you!
This vow could notmust notturn into empty words today, here.
At last she caught up!
At the darkest moment, she saw her sister standing before the great gate like a lamb to the slaughter!
"Rin?"
Tohsaka Tokiomi's brows cinched tight, clear displeasure and surprise flickering across his face. He hadn't expected Rin to be this stubborn, much less to pinpoint this place and actually chase them down. It seemed that not only in Sakura's matter, but also in his discipline of Rin and his instructions to Aoi, things had slipped in ways he hadn't foreseen. It disrupted the "smooth transition" he'd plannedespecially before Matou Zouken, an undeniable loss of composure.
But it had come to this.
The crying of a seven-year-old girl could not change established reality. He could not allow Rin to wreck an adoption that concerned the Tohsaka family's future and a magus's honor.
Sakura, whose soul seemed gone and whose consciousness drifted beyond pain, heard a voice etched into her bonesthe shout that could only belong to her sister. In that instant, a faint but real light flared back to life in her hollow, unfocused violet eyes.
It's sis!
It's really sis!
She didn't lie to me!
She really came!
When the whole world had abandoned her, her sister had come to save her!
A hot rush of gratitude, grievance, and rekindled hope crashed through the numb barrier she'd forced herself to build, and her cold, stiff, almost senseless body found a sliver of strength. She whipped her head around. Through tear-blurred vision she saw her sister, staggering but throwing everything she had into the run. The figure wavered in the thick mist, yet it was like the lone beam of sunlight piercing heavy cloudslike a lighthouse torch guiding the way through endless dark.
Rin Tohsaka burned the last of her strength to close the distance. She couldn't even steady her ragged breathing. She ignored the horrifying old manMatou Zoukenwhose very look made her spine ice over and her stomach knot, and she crushed down the instinctive fear of her father's dark expression.
She saw only her little sister.
Like a lioness, she flung out her arms and yanked Sakurastanding there as if a touch would shatter heraway from her father's side, shielding her tightly behind her.
She was still a child, but she stood ramrod straight, trying to hold up the sky for her sister.
Then she lifted her head. Her gem-red eyes burned like a blazethe flame of Rin Tohsaka's stubborn will, forged from searing anger, gut-ripping pain, disappointment in her father, and an iron refusal to yield.
She stared her father down without flinchingthe man she had once revered and adored, now a stranger of ice: Tohsaka Tokiomi. Through ragged breaths, with a voice that kept breaking into sobs yet rang out loud and clear, she hurled the first and final question torn from her heart:
"Father, do you really have to hand Sakura over to this horrible old man?!"
"Do you not think of Sakura at all?"
"She's your daughter too! She's one of us!"
"How could she be happy in a place like this?"
The girl's sharp, grief-stricken cry echoed along the empty, damp street, striking the cold wallsand striking Tohsaka Tokiomi's heart.
It was the fury of a child ignored, and it mercilessly tore apart the Tohsaka family's fragile faade of "magus reason" and calm.
Blood-bonded kinship and the cold, brutal fate of magi collidedraw, direct, and heartbreakingbefore the Matou gate veiled in morning fog.
Tohsaka Tokiomi's face went utterly dark. There was no reflectiononly anger, a storm-laden sky whose weight pressed down and suffocated. His daughter's public defiance and accusations were a serious challenge to his authority as head and father.
Matou Zouken, meanwhile, kept that skin-crawling smile. His murky eyes narrowed with interest as he took in the sudden family drama. His withered lips seemed to move soundlessly, as if to say:
"See, Tokiomithis is the excess of emotion branches that need pruning, in the end."
The air seemed to freeze.
The sisters' hands clutched each other tightone in a stance of fierce protection, the other like a drowning soul gripping the last piece of driftwood. Facing them loomed the cold wall of the magus world's unshakable rules.
The end of this uneven struggle seemed foregone.
Yet in that moment, the fire in Rin's eyes lit a spark inside Sakura, pushing back the darkness of her despair.
~~~
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Chapter 972: That's your Selfishness!
It wasn't just the damp, wintry morning fog of Fuyuki City hanging in the air.
There was a taut edge to it nowtension and heartbreak, drawn like blades.
Rin Tohsaka's cry, like a question torn from her very blood, still seemed to echo:
"Dad! Do you really have to hand Sakura over to this horrible old man? She's your daughter!!!"
In that suffocating standoff, Matouno, TohsakaSakura, held tight behind her sister, stared at that small yet unshakably steady back. The tiny flame of hope that her father and Matou Zouken had nearly doused at last flared againand with it came courage. She broke free of fear's paralysis, and like a fledgling finding its nest, she called out through tears, "Sis!" Then her little arms locked around her sister's waist, as if pouring every fear and grievance into that embrace.
Feeling Sakura's trembling and total reliance, Rin's heart clenchedsour and aching. She immediately hugged Sakura back, one hand gently patting her shoulder, and in the calmest, most dependable voice she could manage, murmured:
"Don't be afraid. I'm here."
"I'm right here, and I will protect you."
It was a promise to Sakuraand a stand against her own fear.
But this moving scene stirred only irritation and anger in Tohsaka Tokiomi's eyes. His carefully groomed heirthe Tohsaka family's future headnow stood here without a shred of decorum: hair a mess, clothes in disarray, barefoot, sobbing loudly at another family's gate (and of all places, the Matou gate), even defying her father. It flew in the face of the "grace" and "composure" he prized as Tohsaka doctrine.
"Rin!"
Tokiomi's voice rose, imperious and tight with restrained fury.
"Why have you come here?"
"Who taught you to run off without my permission?"
"Look at yourselfhair in disarray, clothes a mess, barefoot. Do you have any of the bearing a Tohsaka lady should?"
His rebuke was ice water meant to douse Rin's resistance. He expected shame and obedience.
What he met instead, when his daughter lifted her head, were gem-red eyes fixed on him with undisguised disappointment and anger.
"Father."
Rin's voice was hoarse from running and shouting, but every word was clear and cold.
"Did you expect me to know nothingjust watch, even tacitly accept you sending Sakura to a place like this?"
"Is doing nothing what counts as the 'grace' of the Tohsaka heir?"
She wasn't merely disappointed anymore. She felt the sting of a blood bond betrayed. She could not understand how the father who, though strict, sometimes cared about their studies could so coolly decide her sister's fate.
At her direct, piercing challenge, Tohsaka Tokiomi's brow furrowed deeply. He had not expected Rin to be this fierce, this resolute. In his view, she might be sad, confusedbut in the end, like her mother Aoi, she would understand and accept a necessary sacrifice for family and magecraft.
He paused, then tried a gentler, more "reasonable" tack with his stubborn elder daughter, softening his tone with patient guidance:
"Rin, you're still young; there's much you don't understand.
Sakura's talent is wasted if she stays with the Tohsaka.
The Matou family has water-aspected crests and an old lineage suited to her constitution.
Here she can walk a stronger path and, in the future, stand shoulder to shoulder on equal ground.
As her sister, don't you want Sakura to have the best prospects? Why block her from a better future?"
He had rehearsed this speech countless times, convinced it was airtightentirely "for Sakura's sake." But he underestimated Rin's acuity, and overestimated how such hollow logic stands against real feeling. Most of all, he failed to see that Rin now knew more of the truth.
