capeandcowllogs | she tied you to a kitchen chair, she broke your throne & she cut your hair; (CLOSED)

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she tied you to a kitchen chair, she broke your throne & she cut your hair; (CLOSED)

WHO:

Father.
WHERE: Kirei's sweet crib aka the church.
WHEN: November 24
WARNINGS: Gross shit??
SUMMARY: After killing Kirei, it's time for him to troll Rin by skipping ahead ten years... it's some kind of parental lesson or something??
FORMAT: Kirei's username.

One Sunday, it happens. Rin Tohsaka made the decision that she's had enough of feeling sorry for herself and so that's how she ended up in the church that used to be the home for her legal guardian.

Used to be.

It'll take some getting used to when thinking of Kirei Kotomine like that again. A part of her twists in agony at the thought of losing him again. She's never taken loss well and while she's kept her emotions wrapped up it's when she finds herself in the comfort of solitude that the bandages slowly unravel. Here is a place full of memories and while Kirei has caused her a significant amount of turmoil in her life by taking away her family, most of the time she's spent with him hasn't been all that bad. He took care of her in the only way he could by safely keeping his distance.

He hasn't returned to the City so it's likely he never will. Having joined her uncle and father once more at the grave, Rin wonders if what she did was truly an act of mercy or perhaps something darker. These were the kind of acts her father and other magi would involve themselves in; was Rin finally learning to live up to reputation laid out before her? It tore at her heart, leaving her to wonder how great men like her father and how wicked men like the priest could ever live with themselves for taking a life. Rin's taken two and while she argues with herself that they were done out of mercy, it's doubtful that they truly were.

She's become a monster like her ancestors.

Yet, she's still able to sit here on a wooden pew up near the altar of the church. If she were really a monster, wouldn't she have been denied access to the church, turned away by the powerful spirit of the Lord? Holding her palm over a lit candle, curiosity causes her to lower it just a bit above the flickering flame. She doesn't pull away when it starts to sting, but the tears do form in her eyes from the pain she's in. Did he cry?

Did she even cry?

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Sunday is the day where the church walls house the greatest number of troubled souls. It is humbling, in its way, to realize how few people truly want to be here; how many come out of some mistaken sense of obligation. How many come simply because they feel they are expected to, or that they will become a sinner if they do not. It's a foolish notion, as if perfect attendance is all it takes to reach the gates of heaven.

It takes more than that to reach salvation.

What will it take, he wonders, to erase the sins of the young girl who is sitting by his altar?

She comes in alone, but she does not escape his notice. He has been settling back in the City quite comfortably. He had considered, once or more, making a scene on the network, announcing himself -- but no. It is better like this: for her to find him again in person, where she cannot hide her reaction to seeing his face again. Not just his face, but his face, so much older than the man she murdered. Did she tell her Servant? And how did he react, knowing what his actions forced her to do?

Even though ten years passed between that time and now, he can remember it all: her words, her lips on his skin, and searing, agonizing death.

Kirei is skilled in being very quiet when he walks. He approaches from behind, laying one hand on the back of the pew as he approaches her.

"Scent memory is said to be quite the powerful trigger," he remarks, speaking bluntly and without introduction. "Are you burning yourself, to remember what it felt like to burn me?"

Kirei steps forward without reservation, taller than she remembers, and wearing a smile that betrays far too much dark enthusiasm.

"Are you punishing yourself?"

"Kirei?"

The cry of his name is coupled with a different cry as she leans in forward in surprise. Her fingers grab at the sides of the candle and she takes the full flame into the palm of her hand. Choking back a sob, she's quick to try to move away from the sound of his voice, only turning to face him once there's an assumed yard between them.

"You're..." Old. That's the first thing she notices, but it seems odd to say that. Part of her wants to wonder how he can recall his time in the City now that he's the age he died at, but perhaps like before, he's come before that event has ever taken place. "You're back."

She recovers enough to manage that.

Kirei Kotomine is back and no longer is he that man she can manipulate with talk of things that have occurred in the years he's yet to live.

The reaction to her cry is a smile.

It's a sweet sort of sound to him, and the noise carries easily in the empty church. Her face. Her reaction. It remains bold in his mind, painted like a picture: Rin does look the best with her heart exposed.

"Did you doubt I would return?" he asks, almost loftily. "You know the rules of this City as well as I; the dead return when forcefully removed. If escape from the City was so simple, fewer would remain here."

He wonders if she thought, or hoped, that this would be permanent. Archer had been careful in capturing him rather than killing him; knowing the consequences of the City.

"Rin. Did you hurt yourself?" he asks. As if it's only natural to show concern and sympathy, he steps forward in effort to close that gap between them. His hand extends towards her, offering and inviting: "Let me see it."

Even when vulnerable, she somehow retains enough strength to step back when he moves in closer. Fear isn't something she shows easily, but it's present in her eyes as they dart from him to the door then up along the walls looking for another possible EXIT sign.

"I know what happens to the dead, that's why I--"

Her voice cracks and she stops, feeling the emotional weight behind a simple action. She has to retain her cold elegance and become the proper magus that her father desired her to be.

"That's why I put you out of your misery. You see, it was simpler to kill you so that you returned without injury since my Servant went out of his way to keep yours from being involved."

"Rin," he speaks with a voice almost like a sigh. It's chastising, and he tilts his head as he gazes at her. "You shouldn't lie -- especially not in this place."

Perhaps memory is distorted in favor of the City, since even with ten years away, he can distantly remember that night. Even with trauma, bloodloss and delirium, he can remember distinctly the weight of her body sinking against his own, and her lips on his skin; her voice before she set him aflame.

When she backs away, he doesn't take another step forward yet. However, his hand remains extended.

"Let me offer a similar kindness: show me your hand."

"It isn't a lie." She has to insist on that because otherwise it meant she killed a man because she wanted to more than because she had to. "Just as it was with that man I found in the sewers... I, I was doing you a favor!"

Which he recognizes by asking that of her, isn't he?

Confusion flickers in her eyes as they avert his gaze. The struggle between deciding whether he's friend or foe blatantly obvious as she remains locked in conflict.

"This, this will heal! So I don't need something like death to fix it!"

"A favor?" he repeats, his voice deceptively soft. "To burn me alive?"

He gazes down at her, his expression dark and difficult to decipher. He is studying her face, memorizing it. He will store away that detail, of what she considers a 'favor', and turn it back against her when the time comes.

It's too simple, really.

"Death? Don't be foolish, Rin," he continues, as if it's ridiculous that she would make much a misunderstanding. "It is within my own power to heal it."

"I don't need you to heal it." Rin needs him to die.

It's a wretched feeling that causes her more guilt, but the truth comes out. Her life in the City had been pleasant and carefree in knowing that no matter what happens, Kirei Kotomine will not be able to do a thing to Fuyuki City in her absence. Then he came to the City, alive and not as easy to manipulate as she had hoped.

Now all it takes is for him to openly state she was the one who killed him to unravel the peaceful life she's made not only for herself here, but for Archer.

"It isn't as if I had many alternatives at the time." She defends her actions even when faced with the man she ruthlessly slayed. "There were no weapons and any other way would have drawn Archer's attention to the point he would have stopped it. I had to do damage that would kill you and that was... ah, that was the quickest way."

"Was there no alternative which involved sparing me?"

Kirei's questions are calm. One would expect hysteria, bitterness or grief when faced with the matter at hand, but Kirei is entirely composed. He has the benefit of ten years between 'then' and 'now' for comparison. It is difficult for him to fear death, when she had told him that he is dead already.

But he can remember the pain and flames, thrust upon him in the wake of a kiss.

He wonders, distantly, how she explained herself to her Servant, and how she spent those days before learning of Kirei's revival.

"You are your Servant's Master, are you not? Did you have to go around him, when you simply could have ordered his obedience?" he continues. "Did you simply... panic? You don't need to deny the truth.

"Did you want to burn me?"

"What do you think?" Rin blurts out in her vulnerability as anger grips her tightly. "Since you're such a know-it-all who thinks he knows everything. Tell me, Kirei Kotomine, why do you think I killed you?"

She holds her hand close to her and wriggles her fingers in hopes that the pain will keep her from lashing out against him.

"I, I did it because I knew you'd return with all of your limbs if you died! It happened at that stupid bloodbath which I saw with my own eyes. We all returned eventually and that's when I knew this place had no such thing as a peaceful death."

Rin Tohsaka has several reasons to want him dead. He is the man who murdered her father, who she loved more than anything, and her mother's death is on his head as well -- albeit indirectly. Since then, there has been his constant deception, her misfortune, and now in the City he even killed her Servant.

But does he ever expect her to admit that desire, much less act on it? Hardly. It is not her nature -- not like Kirei Kotomine. He is not entirely convinced she would have had it in her to kill him, without the guarantee that the Porter would bring him back.

"Bloodbath?"

It's true that Rin has been here longer than he, and experienced more of the Porter's whims. Still, he wonders what other horrors she was thrust into, and what trauma.

Kirei looks down at his arm, and slowly flexes his fingers. "Then do you think I should thank you, for your mercy? he asks, twisting that last word into something rotten.

"I don't want your thanks."

In that phrase alone, she gives away that she did grant him mercy by killing him. Her eyes follow his gaze to his own hand and she instinctively flexes her fingers as well out of watching his own.

"That bloodbath was well known. Why haven't you looked it up? It has my name involved so I thought by now you would have looked up every single thing related to me with your arrival. Is that why you've kept yourself away from me all this time?"

Of course she doesn't.

His gaze moves from his own arm and towards her flexing fingers. The burn isn't great, but it's in a position where it will sting.

No, he hadn't looked into that bloodbath -- but he has reason to do so now. He sets aside that piece of information, and he smiles at her.

"I suppose one can't expect you to feel guilt," he continues. "After all, it's not as if I stayed dead.

A convenient excuse, isn't it?"

Even if she regards him cautiously, she pays no attention to how he looks at her. Her hand hurts, but the pain is what keeps her on edge to deal with Kirei as her breaths stagger a bit.

"Unlike you, I can't just kill a man and feel no remorse." Rin accuses him with words that ring truer than she'll ever know. "I feel like crap over it, Kirei! You raised me and I, I, I had to do what Archer never would for you! It pisses me off!"

Remorse is something utterly unknown to him. He always received praise, as an Executor at such a young age without any 'wavering faith' after the dark deeds he committed. They all praised him for his strength of will, but they misunderstood its origins.

Kirei had misunderstood as well, until the Command Spells appeared on his hand.

"And yet you are speaking as if you blame me," he points out, his words harsh but his tone level, "rather than the Heroic Spirit who forced your hand.

"You are his Master. You are not meant to serve him. He is meant to serve you."

"It isn't that simple."

Rarely is it when love is involved. She's done the unspeakable by caring too deeply about a weapon that's meant to serve her and in her youth, she's done what any other young woman would do: abide by his desires. Archer wanted Kirei to suffer for some reason, so Rin had to step in somehow.

"I don't mean to blame you I just wish you could see it from my point of view, but that would require you to have to actually be able to act like a normal human being!"

It really is something, to see her so at war with herself still.

It's not any surprise. Even if Kirei is the one who robbed her of her family, in the same breath he is the only 'family' she has left. Her parents and her sister were taken from her, and since then she has loved her Servant -- but even when Kirei tried to take that away from her as well, she still seems incapable of truly hating him.

Kirei wonders how far that will go, before she finally breaks.

"I suppose you should realize by now how that is beyond me," he replies, simple and flat, "normalcy."

His heart was corrupt long before Kiritsugu Emiya shot it out, and the Grail replaced it with tainted magic.

"Don't worry, Rin," he continues, his tone changing suddenly. "I don't blame you either."

Again, he offers out his hand.

"I absolve you."

"You what?"

This is too much for her fragile heart to take. Already she's caught up in the conflict of emotions that comes with killing a man, the mixture volatile for someone as vulnerable as Rin. Taking a life is no easy task especially for a girl who has always had others to do it for her. Even if she speaks about the 'blood' on her hands, it's only when she killed Kirei herself did she truly understand the weight of it.

There had to have been another way. There was no other way for that man in the sewers, but Kirei is an imPort with benefits unlike many others. They have a clinic here as well as a number of people who claim to heal, so why didn't she just take him to one of them?

Why didn't she spare Lancer by ensuring he could never regain his Command Seals and why is it she thinks of that instead of any of the other issues that came with his revival.

"I absolve you."

His hand makes the gesture of a blessing in the air between them. Then, he moves to grasp the cross on his neck, lifting it and pressing his lips to the cool gold.

"After all, like you said: you did me a favor, didn't you?"

It's all soft, forgiving words, yet he wields them like knives.

"If you hadn't killed me, imagine how crippled I would have been," he continues, his voice smooth. "I would have been helpless."

He smiles, too widely, knowing how greatly that condition would have benefited her and her precious Servant.

"Ah, but it's late, isn't it?" he asks suddenly. "I shouldn't keep you."

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she tied you to a kitchen chair, she broke your throne & she cut your hair; (CLOSED)

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