"Tokiomi… he… he really…"
Aoi Tohsaka sank into a chair, tears sliding down without a sound.
She was torn and bewildered by her husband's decision, and the sudden news still cut like a knife despite all their years together.
She looked at Rei Ao, her gaze a tangle of gratitude, grief, and confusion.
"Thank you, Rei Ao-san, for saving Rin and Sakura, but Tokiomi…"
"I understand your sorrow, Tohsaka-san," Rei Ao said, his voice calm yet carrying a quiet authority.
"Tokiomi Tohsaka's tragedy was born of his obstinacy and blind adherence to magus doctrine—exploited and warped for centuries by Matouu Zouken."
"The dead are gone. The living have to face forward. Rin and Sakura need you."
His words seemed to carry a guiding force that let Aoi's frantic grief begin to settle.
Rei Ao had long understood that Aoi was shackled by tradition. Without his intervention, she likely would have suffered a severe mental break. As he said, Rin and Sakura needed her.
She looked at her two daughters, pressed close together, fear and reliance shining in their eyes. A mother's instinct to be strong awoke within her. Her husband was gone. She would have to stand tall—if only for her girls.
She wiped her tears, straightened her back, and bowed deeply to Rei Ao. "No matter what, thank you for saving Rin and Sakura. The Tohsaka family owes you a great debt."
"There's no need for formality," he replied, steadying her with a light gesture. "But the days ahead won't be peaceful. Zouken may be dead, yet the machinery of the Holy Grail War remains. As one of the Three Founding Families, the Tohsakas will inevitably be drawn in."
At the mention of the Grail War, Aoi turned pale. Born into the Zenjou family, she wasn't ignorant of the magus world's cruelty—especially the secrets about the Grail War she had gleaned from her husband.
Rin clenched her fists, meeting her mother's and Rei Ao's eyes with clear resolve. "Mom, Rei Ao… nii. Father is gone, but I'm still here. I'm the heir of the Tohsaka family. I'll shoulder our responsibilities and protect you and Sakura."
After all she had been through, she seemed to have grown up overnight. Her father's death devastated her, but it also stripped the shine from that so-called magus pride, revealing the vanity and danger beneath. Her one conviction now was to protect the family she still had.
Sakura spoke up too, soft but firm: "I'll help my sister."
Seeing her daughters so steady and sensible, Aoi's heart ached even as relief bloomed. She pulled them into her arms, tears rising again—this time threaded with determination.
Rei Ao nodded slightly at the scene. Rin's talent and temperament were exceptional. If properly guided after this ordeal, her future would be bright.
"Ding-dong!"
The manor's doorbell rang.
Aoi gathered herself and went to open the door. On the threshold stood a tall young man in a black clerical cassock, features stern yet oddly hollow. He was Tokiomi's student—Kotomine Kirei—an Executor of the Holy Church.
"Master's wife," Kirei said, his voice flat, revealing nothing. "I sensed abnormal magical activity in Fuyuki City, seemingly from the direction of the Matou residence. As for my teacher…"
His gaze slid past Aoi, across Rin and Sakura in the sitting room, and finally settled on Rei Ao. In those hollow eyes, the faintest ripple stirred.
Seeing her husband's student, Aoi began to speak of the tragedy—but Rei Ao raised a hand to stop her. He stood, meeting Kirei's eyes. From the moment this man appeared, Rei Ao had felt an aberrant, twisted cast to his spirit. It wasn't simple coldness or emptiness; it was a fundamental deficit in normal emotional cognition, and a warped hunger for meaning born in pain and nihilism.
"Kotomine Kirei," Rei Ao said, calling him by name, his tone unreadable.
Kirei blinked, surprised that this stranger knew who he was. "And you are?"
"Who I am doesn't matter." Rei Ao walked toward him, blue-green eyes seeming to look straight through him. "What matters is this: did you come out of concern for your teacher—or because you're chasing some abnormal sensation you think might fill the void inside you?"
Kirei's pupils tightened a fraction. The words pierced like a needle, striking a place in his heart he himself barely understood.
He had been born without ordinary emotional experience. Pain, joy, sorrow—these were vague notions. Only when he witnessed others' suffering and struggle did he feel a faint, strange stirring—an unconscious twist one could call "pleasure."
"I don't understand what you mean," Kirei said evenly. But beneath the emptiness, something began to churn.
"Don't understand?" Rei Ao stopped a few paces away, a faint, ambiguous smile on his lips. "Then let me help you see yourself."
A green glint flashed in his eyes. An invisible, vast mental force swept over Kirei. It wasn't an attack but a higher-order insight and reflection—an ability from another world known as Psychological Mastery.
"Urr—ah!" Kirei let out a sound that wasn't quite human. His body shook violently, as if his brain—his very soul—had been stripped of every disguise and thrust, bare, into the glaring light of truth.
~~~
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