SWITCHBOARD

[transmittable]

If you'd like to ask the Transmitter something over the phone, go right ahead! The Transmitter will answer the phone as soon as she's available. Leaving messages is impossible, given how old these phones are, but you should be able to reach her at almost all hours.

Comments are screened for privacy; all Patients are offered confidentiality, didn't you know?

Comments

[heritrix]

[Dammit, Transmitter, she's trying not to have an emotion here. Rin doesn't thank her, because she's sure if she did her voice would crack.]

You have that authority?

[transmittable]

...They've got power over me, but...I've also got some power over them. I have a few ideas that'd stop them cold.

[heritrix]

I wish you could have put them to use sooner.

[It's unfair, and Rin knows it. Whatever sway the Transmitter holds over the Risen has to be timed carefully, or it would never work. In her chair, Rin sits straighter.]

Sorry, that's ungrateful. [...] I'll rely on you for that.

[transmittable]

No, it's not.

[ The Transmitter sounds tired. ]

It's...literally the least I can do.

[heritrix]

...I don't know if the others have a secret that effects so many lives as mine does, but if they do there's no "least" about it.

[It's a line said so gravely, Rin knows she immediately has to compensate for it. Brushing her hair back, Rin tries to get back in the zone. It's time to psyche herself up.]

It's probably a good thing you couldn't do more. I don't like leaving debts unsettled, and if that happened I'd owe you from beyond the grave.

[transmittable]

Your sister.

[ ...That's a really out of nowhere and abrupt change, but. The Transmitter just blurts it out, sounding almost desperate. ]

Sak- Committed. If you- if you're going to do this- ...do something with her. Before you do. I- I'm not supposed to make you do anything, or encourage, but- please. Give your little sister a good...a good memory with you.

[heritrix]

[A plea like this was unexpected, like a knife through the ribs. Rin's grip on the phone pieces turn crushing, bleaching her knuckles white.]

I forgot that you knew that.

[That she would know everything about that, such a taboo subject.]

That's cruel. [Her voice is quiet and strained.] If someone was going to tell me the pact I followed so strictly didn't matter after all, here at the end, why couldn't I have broken it earlier? Why only after ten years?

[Giving them something like that... That's a spit in the face if with the next step, Rin just has to take it away. How could that make Sakura happy?]

[transmittable]

But at least she'd have something!

[ Her voice breaks. It's raw, and it's broken, and it's strange, but it's the very true. ]

It'd hurt, but- but she'd have something nice, you'd- you'd both have something, whatever happened! That pact is- you have her here, isn't that- doesn't that mean something?!

[ Of all the things the Transmitter knows and doesn't, all that she is confused about and has a hard time recalling, this is not one of them. ]

T-tell her you love her...give her something to hold on to.

[heritrix]

She's not even the same one!

[Rin's outburst is quieter but an outburst all the same, voice notably thicker than it was before, like there's a lump in her throat. Now that the Transmitter has gotten the wheels turning, it's impossible to stop. She can only quiet the noise (and there's so much) and try to keep the Transmitter's emotions from tripping hers up like a branch at her feet.]

It— Our memories don't match properly. We realized it two days ago. [There was overlap at the beginning, but things changed drastically from there. Details from magical texts bobble uselessly to her mind. Multi-Dimensional Refraction Phenomenon.] Two closely related, but still divergent timelines. I'm not the Rin Tohsaka she knows, and she's not...

[Rin's Sakura is still back in her version of Fuyuki somewhere. What can she do for her?]

[transmittable]

[ It doesn't stop the Transmitter, or even slow her down. ]

Who cares?! You're still- you're still Rin Tohsaka, her older sister. So what if you remember different things? So what if...if the timeline isn't the same...she still has your sister's face...and you have hers.

You have her personality...and her voice. Whatever happens- if you could give her the sound of her sister's voice, saying that- don't you understand what that could mean to her?

[ This is by far the most emotional and the most insistent the Transmitter has been in their conversations, or in her announcements. Something about this sets her off, specifically. ]

[heritrix]

[In a few days, Rin will recall that. Not just the emotion or the insistence, but that all of that was enough it compelled the Transmitter to us her name. Not "Courageous", but "Rin Tohsaka".

For now she's still trying to repress it. What does it matter? Tomorrow, by some lucky streak either Rin will be victorious and Sakura will die, or Rin will fail and be executed, leaving Sakura behind.]

I don't!

[There's a heavy, crashing sound. Rin's struck her desk with her fist, rattled the wood and everything on it.]

How can I?! I didn't—

[I didn't have her voice either.

For eleven years, Rin hasn't had a sister. For ten, she hasn't had a father. She was allowed two extra years with her mother but it was like living with a ghost; a voice calling out to other ghosts Rin couldn't see long since moved on, sometimes in a lilting way that sounded like her mother, and sometimes in deranged screams that woke her up in the middle of the night.

Rin became accustomed to being lonely, long before her mother's voice stopped haunting the halls. She got used to the quiet; accepted it and the fact she would always be alone. Nothing but superficial relationships for her.

She can't know a wish she never dared to dream for herself.]

[transmittable]

[ The crash, the outburst, something in it halts the Transmitter's plea- or at least pauses it. Through the static, her breath catches.

A pause.

When she continues, it's shaky and still a little urgent, but more sad than forceful. ]

I can tell you, then. I know this much. It could mean...the world to her. You too.

[heritrix]

[Rin is quiet for a long time. Not silent; her breathing isn't harsh, but it's audible in that way someone inhales through their nose, to keep from making a sound with their mouth. Occasionally there's a rustle of fabric, and the creak of her chair.]

I need to go now.

[At last she speaks, with a calm and even tone. Unlike the start of their start of their conversation, however, it rings hollow.]

[transmittable]

Alright. ...I hope to speak with you tomorrow, Courageous.

[ All the Transmitter sounds is defeated. ]

[heritrix]

[Why? She won.]

One way or another, you can count on it.

[That's Rin's goodbye apparently because she hangs up the phone. Sitting in her chair she wants to linger, but checks the time on her tablet again. About ten minutes after six.

That gives her just under six hours to accomplish everything she needs to do. She has to shower (wash her face), and then plan a picnic and some other nice activity for Sakura. She doesn't know what yet, but she'll think about it as she showers, along with all the preparations she still has left to do.

And somewhere in the middle of that, Rin also has to manage a complete 180° not just to psyche herself up enough to murder someone tonight, but to get away with it in the morning.]