James_D_Fawkes
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Fate/Recursive Wisdom (Snippet 1)
🕑 Added 2017-04-12 08:37:41 +0000 UTC Ideas are things, and I have them. Frequently. This one was had yesterday, while I was taking a walk.— o.0.O.O.0.o —
I was a mistake. I was an accident. I was an aberration.
I was a blessing. I was a gift. I was a miracle.
Both were true. Neither was wrong. One, I was told almost from birth. An empty platitude, perhaps. The kindness parents tell their children when they don't want to say "unplanned." The other, I realized on my own later, after...well, after.
I was not supposed to exist. Every breath I took was wrong, every heartbeat stolen. Every day I lived, the universe was knocked further off its proper course.
I never found out if my parents' reaction to my birth was joy or dismay, if I'd been a happy accident or an unwelcome surprise, if they'd smiled and laughed and thanked whatever god they believed in or if they'd cursed every deity whose name they recognized. Now, I never would.
Maybe it was better that I wasn't planned. Maybe it was better that I hadn't even inherited all of the sheer talent that my sisters had.
Small mercy, that. Because I hadn't received Rin's unparalleled genius or Sakura's unique attribute, I had been spared both the "glory" of the Tohsaka and the "generosity" of the Matou.
Instead, I was the child who would languish in obscurity and mediocrity. I was the third child, the one who had inherited the potential but not the raw ability, destined to remain ignorant of magic and mystery.
Except I wasn't.
Could I call it fate? Could I call it destiny? Or was it too arrogant to assume that I was part of some special plan and not a fluke, a mistake in an otherwise smoothly functioning machine?
My name is Tohsaka Yukio, and I am living in a fantasy world.
— o.0.O.O.0.o —
I woke up with a pounding headache to the first rays of sunlight and clenched my eyes shut with a groan.
What?
"Oh, you're awake," said a deep voice.
I blinked and looked blearily over to its owner, a young man who sat in a chair beside my bed. I didn't know why he was sitting there, and I had the vague sense that I should know him, but there he sat, regardless.
As he set his book down — a thick, leatherbound tome embossed with a golden cross — he turned his empty brown eyes my way, devoid of life, warmth, and compassion. Vaguely, in some distant thought, I noted the mop of brown hair and the robe-like shirt, the brassy crucifix, and the unique collar that declared him a Catholic priest.
"Rin will be delighted to hear," he said, sounding somehow disappointed. "She's been worried sick, these past few days."
Rin?
"Uh-bwah?"
Not the most elegant of responses, perhaps, but the only one I could manage, at the time.
"Oh, are you still not feeling well?"
Aren't priests supposed to be kind and caring? Why the hell do you sound so pleased by that?
"In that case, I suppose you may have to miss the funeral."
"Funeral?" was my first coherent question. Had someone died? I...couldn't remember. My memories were all a jumble, and every time I tried to focus, it just made the headache worse.
"For your father," the priest clarified.
Comments
Caractacus
Kinda-sorta SI OC. I hoped it was clear from the narration, but the main character is the brother of Tohsaka Rin and Matou Sakura. Specifically, Rin's fraternal twin. Who is seven minutes older. And he constantly reminds Rin of this fact, to her consternation. Not featured in here, but implied in the opening monologue, the OC has an event (right now, he was kidnapped by Ryuunosuke and later rescued, but that might change later) where he accidentally unlocks his magic circuits and with them, memories of a past life. It's a different idea than my usual fare. Tohsaka Yukio is extremely disadvantaged: he was not talented enough to be the Tohsaka heir, and his magical attribute was not unique enough for him to be handed over to an allied magus family, the way Sakura was to the Matou. He has no Magic Crest, virtually no training in magecraft (that isn't self-taught from memories of reading the FSN VN), and though he has magic circuits and mana close or equal to Rin's and Sakura's, he's too much of a novice to use them to their full potential. The only advantage he really has is knowledge, but even that becomes more and more useless the more and more he influences the people around him, often unintentionally. He's a mediocre guy with above average intelligence but few ways to leverage it in a world where any of a dozen or more things could kill him before he turns 18. That doesn't count the Fifth Grail War coming around in 10 years. It's supposed to be even more of a character driven piece than Miracle of Zero. I like the idea, but right now, it's still in the very early planning stages.
Shelwyn
Ah I don't know who the main character is so not sure what to think of the point of view.
