Fate/Recursive Wisdom Teaser 2 (Patreon)

“You really don’t give yourself enough credit,” she told him, trying to be supportive. “Your jewel magecraft is perfectly acceptable —”

“You mean mediocre.”

“— and your grasp on the basics is solid.”

“In other words, good enough to match a second or third rate magus,” he translated.

Rin grimaced. It wasn’t exactly untrue, but… Damn it, couldn’t he just accept her compliments?

“A-Anyway,” she said, changing the subject, “you went to the Clock Tower, right? Some sort of business you were handling?”

“Ah, that.” He grimaced. “Well, uh, I was actually there to take care of a bit of inheritance. Dear old Dad set up a couple of betrothals for me.”

“Betrothal? Like an arranged marriage?” She blanched. “Wait, hold on — a couple? As in, more than one?”

Sheepishly, he held up three fingers. “I managed to whittle it down to three.”

Rin sputtered and felt her face turn red. “What?! That doesn’t make it any better, you know! ‘Whittle it down’ means there were more beforehand!”

“Dad was prepared,” said Yukio. “He had a whole bunch of contingencies in case his preferred matches were rejected or renegotiated later on, so…um, well, it was basically every eligible female heir or family head within ten years of me. Plus or minus.”

Rin twitched. Plus or minus… That meant that he’d said no to at least a couple seven-year-olds.

Wait.

“You did say no to the seven-year-olds, didn’t you?”

Yukio had the grace to look affronted. “What do I look like, a lolicon?”

“That’s not a no.”

“Geez, you think you’d have more faith in your favorite brother,” he griped. “Yes, Rin, I said no to the seven-year-olds. And the ten-year-olds. Everyone under fifteen, actually, which was basically everyone who was younger than me by more than maybe a few months.”

Rin let out a breath. “All right. So, you said three. Who does that leave, then?”

“Well, there’s Dad’s preferred match,” said Yukio, “a girl a few years older than me by the name of Barthomeloi Lorelei. She’s probably the entire reason why there are contingencies, actually, because there’s apparently some clause in the betrothal contract about how it can be negated if the Barthomeloi’s family head — which is Lorelei, now — decides I’m unworthy of her when it’s time for the contract to be fulfilled.”

“She sounds like a stuck-up bitch,” Rin commented. 

“You know,” Yukio began slyly, “there are some who would say you —”

“If you finish that sentence, I’m disowning you.”

Yukio let out a laugh. “Wow, twice in one day? You must really have missed me!”

She flushed. “I-idiot! That’s not it at all! As the head of the Tohsaka family, it falls to me to ensure the prosperity of my family, and a marriage like that can’t be prosperous if both sides aren’t satisfied with the arrangement!”

“If you say so.”

“A-anyway!” she said, trying to regain her dignity. “You said there were three. Who were the other two?”

“Ah, right.” He snorted. “Well, the second one was the Edelfelt family. By a strange twist, the head also retired young and left the headship to his daughter, a girl by the name of Luviagelita. She’s about our age, actually. Might be a year or so older, at the most.”

“And the third family?”

Yukio grinned sheepishly. “I, uh, don’t remember?”

Rin stared at him flatly. “…What?”

He shrugged. “I don’t remember. I stopped paying attention during that meeting, so that’s probably why they didn’t call it off altogether, because I didn’t express any interest in doing so.”

“How can you not remember?” she sputtered. “Yukio! This is your future wife we’re talking about! How are you supposed to have a prosperous marriage if you don’t even remember her name?!”

“Because it doesn’t matter!” he protested.

“Doesn’t matter?!”

“It doesn’t!” he said. “Even if the Barthomeloi say no, the Edelfelt definitely won’t!”

“You don’t know that!”

He grimaced and wiped a hand down his face. “Actually, yes, I do. She told me so herself.”

Rin’s brain ground to a halt. “What?”

“Luviagelita told me herself that she’ll accept if the Barthomeloi reject me,” he explained. “She told me flat out, in no uncertain terms, that if Lorelei says no, she’ll take me, no matter what. Something like, since the Tohsaka family of thieves stole one of the Edelfelt sisters during the Third Holy Grail War, it was only right that the Edelfelt family take one of the Tohsaka siblings, now. It was just a shame I didn’t have the Crest that we apparently stole, too, because her family’s been wanting that back for decades — or so she said.”

“That’s what she wants you for?!” Rin demanded. “To repay a grudge her family’s been holding for sixty years?!”

He shrugged.

“And of course, you said no!”

Yukio grimaced. “I didn’t get the impression I was allowed to.”

“Of course you’re allowed to!” Rin groaned and pinched at the bridge of her nose. “Please tell me she was at least ugly.”

“Smoking hot, actually,” Yukio said casually. “Everything the right size and the right shape in the right place. Takes good care of herself, too, she’s in really good shape. Only thing awkward or odd is the way she styles her hair — old-fashioned, Victorian era curls. A little strange, but it doesn’t make her less attractive.”

“Yukio.”

He smirked. “Of course, the personality was less endearing. Really got the ‘I’m better than you, plebeian,’ thing going on, like she talked down to me the entire time. Plus, she’s got this most god-awful laugh that she must have practiced, because there’s no way it’s natural.”

Rin blinked. “Her laugh is what throws you off?”

Yukio straightened, lifted one hand up to his mouth daintily, adopted the most superior, condescending expression she’d ever seen on his face, and then demonstrated. “Oh-ho-ho-ho-hoh!”

Rin felt her eyebrow twitch. 

“Like a hyena,” Yukio agreed as though she’d spoken. “I think she’s actually trying to go for that ‘refined noblewoman’ kind of thing, but it just doesn’t sound like that at all.”