fate/first order derivative

Part I.7

> continue: iteration 16, day 2, evening

"You knew Uncle Shin?!"

"Keep it down!" Rin hisses, glancing to either side. "I have neighbors, you know?"

"Sorry, just --" I run my hands through my hair. "Rin, this is huge. Messing around with my uncle's tech is what got me into this whole mess. If he --"

"Hup bup bup!" She wags her finger at me. "When did I say we were on a first-name basis?!"

"Oh. Right, right. Sorry, Tohsaka." I flush and look away.

"That's better."

"So... um..." I scratch the back of my head. "... still. How did you know my uncle?"

"He was an acquaintance of my dad's." Rin leans against the doorframe. "At least, that's what he told me. I met him for the first time at the funeral."

"Wait... as in, your dad's funeral?"

"Mmh." She brushes back her hair. "Then after my mom died, he started coming by to check in on me every now and again. Help me out around the house with things I didn't know how to do -- plumbing, repairs, stuff like that. Took me out for ice cream sometimes. That kind of thing."

"Wow. I had no idea..." Wait, so both of her parents are dead? Shit... I guess it'd seemed weird to me before how empty her house felt. But I'd just figured her family must've been at work or out of town or something... "So then what?"

"Then nothing." Rin shrugs. "He had to stop coming when he got sick. Then he died. I presume you know about that, at least."

"Well, yeah..." There's no way this could be a coincidence. "So your dad was a mage, right? If he knew Uncle Shin... is there any chance he could have taught him about magic?"

"Absolutely not!" She rears up and crosses her arms. "Do you have any idea what the penalties for revealing secrets to normies are?! My father would never have risked dishonoring the Tohsaka name in such a way! And I never told Shin anything either, before you ask!"

"Okay, okay!" I hold up my hands. The way she's reacting, you'd think I accused her dad of being a war criminal or something. "Well... what if Shin was a mage? You said Magic Circuits can just randomly pop up in families, right?"

"Impossible," she snaps. "I would have sensed it. Even when I was a kid."

"You didn't sense me."

"That's because you're..." She hesitates. "Oh, there's no nice way to say this... your Circuits are so malformed, there's no way you could ever become a real mage. Even if Shin had been a rando like you, Father wouldn't have seen him as worth training. There'd be no point. You wouldn't even provide much as a sacrifice."

I try to ignore that last part and translate her lingo into terms I'm more familiar with. Sounds like normie means Muggle, and rando means... I don't know... some combination of Mudblood and Squib, I guess? "Listen, Rin -- I think Shin might've been researching magic stuff..."

"What did I just say about first names?!"

"Well, sorry!" I throw up my hands. "It's just shorter. One syllable instead of three, you know? That's the only reason I keep doing it."

"Oh, well, in that case! Should I just start calling you Tom then?" she demands. "Just to keep things snappy?"

"Well, I mean, you could." I rub the back of my neck. "It'd just be weird, because no one does."