"—Do as you desire for them; that is your law."
…
What is it like to suddenly become someone's adoptive father?
Happy?Annoyed?
Rovie didn't know what a "normal" feeling should be, but at this moment he felt nothing particularly deep. Neither joy nor disgust showed strongly — only his usual calm.
Of course, the reason for that calm had to do with himself, and he knew it well.
He didn't especially love Tohsaka Sakura. At most he felt pity for what had been done to her.
In the original timeline, Sakura's fate was undeniably tragic.
Not limited to a single misery: she was adopted by monsters, pushed into a pit of filth by her own father, lost the only uncle who cared in the war, endured more than a decade of secret modification and torment, and finally saw her long-absent sister fall in love with the same man — and worse besides.
If some deity of fate still existed, what had been done to Sakura could only be described as malicious.
Because of memories from his previous life, Rovie had a certain prescient advantage in this world. Not to the degree of omniscience, but enough to influence some important events and choices.
One of those memories concerned Sakura being taken in by the Matou family — an especially crucial fact.
So…
Am I a righteous savior who rescued a girl from a hellhole? he wondered.
He flicked through the book in his hands, glanced at the dim sky outside, and murmured to himself.
Probably. Even if he'd had other motives — tactical convenience for later plans — the end result undeniably saved the girl from a miserable fate.
Actions speak louder than motives. For now, that was enough.
Admittedly, there was a measure of selfishness mixed in.
He closed the book and allowed a faint smile to curl his lips. The snow-blanketed Fuyuki City outside lay unusually quiet after the storm; moonlight filtered through the window and fell upon him, pure and cold.
He shook his head, half self-mocking, then let out a rueful laugh and muttered playfully to himself.
"Rather than be a righteous savior, maybe I just want to raise a girl for fun…"
He felt pity, a little fondness, and a desire to do what he could. Honesty suited him — and he wasn't breaking any laws, so why not be straightforward?
Was the trade worth it — giving a family's magical imprint in exchange for adopting someone's daughter? To others it might seem excessive, but to Rovie it was worth the cost.
Unlike those magi obsessed with reaching the Root, his craving for the Root wasn't that intense. His family's magical craft was special, and while true lineage-bound source imprints were priceless, an alchemist could recreate a usable imprint with enough materials. It wouldn't be identical to an ancient source imprint, but for a declining house it was a viable solution to succession — expensive, difficult, but possible. The Crowley family possessed that alchemical know-how; Rovie himself knew how to reconstruct a workable imprint. That was why he dared sign the writ.
If Master Tohsaka knew I'd just tricked him, he'd probably be furious, Rovie thought, but he didn't care. Whether Tokiomi realized the truth didn't matter — the scroll bound the Crowley imprint, and it didn't specify "original source imprint." Who said a crafted alchemical imprint couldn't serve as an heir-bearing imprint?
And if it ever came to blows, rivalry in the upcoming Grail War would determine things. Neither man was likely to spare the other for Sakura's sake.
Rovie disliked the Clock Tower's politics more than he disliked magecraft itself. He disliked petty court intrigue and decrepit elders who did politics instead of research. He still loved the mysteries of the world and the interesting phenomena the Root promised — for example, the Holy Grail War.
Gather experience from strange events, grow stronger, and seize the treasures you want. That was enough.
As for fighting other houses, following the example of past transmigrators who built empires — he wasn't sure why he'd do that, or what purpose it would serve. Power for power's sake wasn't his aim.
He had no grand aspiration to rule or uplift humanity. He wanted to do what he wanted, and what he could.
That was his creed:
"Do as you desire for them; that is your law."
Do what you want, pursue what you want — that was his path.
He closed the storybook, switched off the bedside lamp, pinched Sakura's soft cheek, pulled the cover over her, and left the room.
"—Good night, Sakura."
Sleep well. Quiet nights like this might not come often. He had preparations to make for the coming war.
"Then, for the time being, little Sakura is entrusted to you. That's acceptable, isn't it, Mr. Matou—" Rovie turned his head toward a shadowed corner near the doorway.
There, leaning against the wall by the entrance, stood a handsome, gentle-faced man with a backpack slung over his shoulder, wearing a black tracksuit. Short dark bangs partly hid the worried look in his eyes.
"...Thanks," the man murmured.
Chapter 7 — The Crimson of Pain (2/2)
Kanzaki City.
A well-known fast-food chain restaurant.
"I've seen a lot of strange customers over the years, some downright bizarre, but this might be the first time someone I barely know waves me over and makes me meet in a fast-food joint to bark orders like this," said Cangqi (Aozaki) Touko as she stubbed out her cigarette and looked at the black-haired youth across from her, who was nodding as he ate fries.
"Even if you're my junior, some courtesy is due when you ask favors, Crowley-kun," she added dryly.
Rovie glanced at her and, without looking up, replied: "Fast food's convenient and filling. Better than those fancy cafés where the pastries look good and leave you hungry."
He'd left Fuyuki the night before, taken the overnight shinkansen, and reached his destination at dawn. If one mapped his itinerary: flight from London to the Far East, taxi, then straight onto the shinkansen — nonstop travel.
So he'd chosen the nearest place to the station for a quick bite, and called in someone he knew: the red-haired woman sitting opposite him.
She looked young, barely into her twenties, but her reputation was enormous — once a Clock Tower prodigy whose achievements exceeded ordinary imagination. She'd reconstructed two dying magical systems in modern times: medieval puppetcraft (revived and advanced into a form of quasi-immortality for constructs) and the lost Norse rune base, reworking the twenty-four runes and even restoring some primordial runes lost since the Age of Gods. Those feats were miraculous.
Because of that, she formerly held the Clock Tower's highest attainable rank — Grand — and bore the epithet "The Crimson of Pain" (Kizu no Aka). Yet even such a miracle had fallen on hard times.
Why? Because the Clock Tower had its regime of "Designated Containment" — a policy that "protects" talented or taboo magi by seizing and imprisoning them. In plain terms, it treats rare magi as specimens to be preserved: confinement in the name of research, arguably tantamount to a living death. Touko had been put on that list by her own teacher and had spent years on the run.
Now she wore a white blouse, a coffee-colored sweater and a light tan coat, hair tied into a ponytail, oval glasses on the bridge of her nose. The weariness at the edges of her gaze was clear.
"Touko-senpai, running from those guys can't be fun," Rovie said.
"...Heh, don't say it out loud," she replied, sighing. She grabbed a handful of fries and shoveled them into her mouth, refusing to mince words.
Being a Top-Ranked Grand-class puppetmaster on the run wasn't relaxing. She was constantly dodging the law's hounds — the enforcement squad from the Clock Tower's Legal Division — and had to scrounge for cash to pay off debts. Despite being hard to kill, she was outmatched in resources: a lone fugitive versus the Tower's enforcement teams and bounty hunters. Their combined information and force made her life a constant flight.
A life of perpetual escape was not what a magus should want. A steady place for research, a hope of reaching the Root — that was the proper path. The fugitive life was for madmen.
Worse, Touko's funds were dwindling. She'd even considered pawning rune research to Rovie if things got desperate.
So when a certain well-off junior called asking for a meeting, she rushed out of her hideout to try to raise funds. She didn't mention the debts she'd already run up with Rovie — that could be discussed later. If things went south, she could always mortgage her rune findings.
"Two years away and you've changed a lot," she said as she studied him, curiosity flashing in her crimson eyes.
"Have I changed that much?" Rovie replied.
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