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

[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.]