Shinji Matou At Your Service

The man was injured in the eyes by the intense light emitted from the shattered bracelet. Disregarding Rin, who was right beside him, he screamed in pain while covering his eyes with both hands.

Simultaneously, as the bracelet shattered, the magecraft that had taken control of the children's bodies and robbed them of their consciousness quickly dissipated. The children lying on the ground gradually regained consciousness.

"Kotone." Rin rushed to her friend's side, watching her eyes regain her brightness and her face regain color.

"Rin... Where are we?" Kotone looked at Rin, then glanced around in confusion, seemingly unaware of what had just happened.

As Kotone woke up, the other children also woke up. Some screamed while others cried out of fear.

In this critical moment, Rin fully demonstrated the Tohsaka family motto: "Stay calm and elegant at all times."

"Now is not the time to cry. Everyone, run away quickly."

She shouted to everyone and pulled her friend to run out first.

Seeing someone take the lead, the other children followed suit and ran out as well.

By the time the man recovered from his brief blindness, the children had already disappeared without a trace. He could only helplessly squat on the ground, picking up a fragment of the bracelet with a mournful expression.

"I wonder if the boss will be angry?"

...

The commotion of the children on the streets naturally attracted the attention of the police. Nearby officers quickly arrived, protecting the children, comforting them, verifying their identities, and contacting their parents.

Before the children were discovered by the police, Rin quietly slipped away from the crowd and silently observed from a small alley across the street.

Watching Kotone being closely guarded by armed police in the center, Rin could finally breathe a sigh of relief.

What happened tonight involved magecraft, a mysterious art that must not be known to ordinary people. Therefore, Rin couldn't appear in front of the police. Although she felt a small regret for not receiving the gratitude of the other children, as long as Kotone was safe and sound, Rin was satisfied.

"Alright, let's go back."

Before leaving, she once again held the magic pointer given to her by her father and whispered in the direction of the Tohsaka household.

"Dad, I succeeded."

Before the words even fell, the magic pointer suddenly began to tremble, more violently than ever before. It even "jumped" out of Rin's hand and floated in mid-air, shaking up and down.

The flat magic pointer, under the traction of the magic source, lifted upward, firmly locked in a direction inclined at a forty-five-degree angle.

In the piercing and strange sound of "Giiiiii," an unidentified object descended from the sky, and the magic pointer also fell downward. This scene reminded Rin of her father's advice when he gave her the magic pointer.

"Rin, remember, you can't handle something with such a strong reaction at the moment."

That time, Tokiomi had experimented with a magecraft book that left a psychological shadow on Rin, and the unidentified object appearing before her had a more intense reaction than that time.

It was an extremely ugly creature, with a damp body, countless small fleshy tendrils, and a circular mouth at the center of the tendrils that made Rin feel disgusted.

However, Rin couldn't vomit. The despair and fear that oppressed her nerves were stronger than facing the kidnapper alone, devouring her soul.

Danger, danger, danger—

Her body tightened, and every hair stood on end.

Rin's innate aptitude for magecraft told her the extent of the crisis she had fallen into.

Magic, the so-called magecraft, was just the cognition of death, accepting death—this was the first threshold that all apprentice magi had to overcome in their training.

The icy touch of "death" was so tangible, leading to the abyss of despair.

There was no escape and no understanding.

On Sakura's first day entering the Matou household, facing the overwhelming Worms, she experienced the proximity of "death."

When Shinji opened the magical circuits for her in the Matou household, she also experienced pain that would be remembered for a lifetime.

At this moment, the young Rin was forced to personally experience the terrifying nature of magecraft.

In the fixed gaze, the monster stood up, supported by its tendrils, and wriggled closer to Rin.

The monster's movements were not fast, and at Rin's speed, she could probably outrun it at full sprint. Even if she couldn't, she could run to the main street and call for help.

But Rin couldn't do it. The feeling of being enveloped by "death" made her unable to move a finger. She could only futilely scream, a voice that could only echo in the alley and couldn't reach the outside world.

"Don't come any closer, don't, absolutely don't, no, no, no, no, no, no—"

The monster's sharp teeth flickered with a cold light, and the fleshy tendrils and gaps between its teeth oozed a strange-smelling slime.

It got closer.

Even closer.

The tendrils with red fleshy growths were about to touch Rin's body.

Right at the critical moment when the tendrils were only a few centimeters away from Rin's face, she heard a sound passing by her ear.

She thought it was caused by the cold feeling of her soul leaving her body, and she thought that her current thinking, including the sensation of her senses, was about to collapse.

But in the next second, she overturned her judgment because she heard a familiar voice, a voice as important as her father, no, even more important.

"Sister, run!"

Sister, there was only one person in the world who called her that, and that was her younger sister, Sakura.

The sisterly bond and affection made Rin forget her fear and escape from the shadow of death. Ignoring the monster right in front of her, she turned her head and saw her sister, who had already been tainted by the Matou family, grabbing her hand and running towards the alley entrance.

At the same time, a faint explosion sounded behind the two girls, and the monster that was preparing to feed suddenly began to swell, twist, and emit bursts of blood mist.

A dozen seconds later, the monster that had posed a deadly threat to Rin convulsed and fell to the ground.

By now, Sakura had already taken her sister out of the alley, out of the bar street.

The cold wind blew against their cheeks as the scenery on both sides quickly receded. Rin had never imagined that her sister, that quiet sister, could run so fast, even faster than herself, who was the top in physical education at school.

Was it the result of her daily morning runs?

Should she try it too?

As Rin pondered these thoughts, she let Sakura lead her forward.

When she came to her senses, she realized that they had already arrived at a park not far from Shinto Center.

"Huff~ huff~ Sakura, thank you for saving me," Rin gasped and said to her sister, "But how did you—"

Because Sakura exercised every day, her condition was much better than her sister's. She carefully wiped the sweat from Rin's forehead and answered somewhat shyly.

"Mom, I mean Auntie Tohsaka called and said that you, no, she found a note from you that you ran away from home..."

Rin couldn't pay attention to what Sakura said next. She only had one thought now.

"Oh no, oh no, Mom found out. I'm going to get scolded when I go back."