Be adopted by someone else?
Become someone else's child?
Why?
Did I do something wrong?
Is it because I didn't try hard enough?
Or because I'm not as gifted as Onee-chan at magic practice—so Father doesn't want me anymore?
Sakura's heart swirled with countless fears and questions.
"This is for your own good."
That was how Father ended it, his tone leaving no room for doubt.
But none of it felt "good" to her.
All she knew was that she would be leaving the home whose scent she'd known since birth; leaving the mother who always smiled gently and made her delicious treats; leaving Onee-chan, who might tease her sometimes but would hug her tight when she was scared and say, "Onee-chan will protect you."
She would go alone to live with complete strangers—a "great family," as Father had only vaguely put it.
Sakura didn't want to go.
Not at all.
A small voice deep inside was screaming.
She wanted to throw herself into her mother's arms and be coddled, to grab her sister's hand for comfort, to tell Rin she didn't want this.
But she couldn't.
Her upbringing—the Tohsaka family's bone-deep emphasis on "grace" and "rules," and especially her father's stern, distant manner—were like invisible shackles binding every impulse and bit of self.
Be obedient.
Be sensible.
Submit to your parents' decisions—especially your father's.
That was the rule drilled into her. Any willful act "unbefitting a daughter of the Tohsaka family" was forbidden.
So she swallowed all her discomfort, fear, confusion, and wrenching reluctance like bitter medicine, forcing it down into the deepest part of her heart.
She felt like a puppet tugged by unseen strings, stripped of the power to move on her own—silently, passively following the tall, familiar back ahead of her, into the thick fog, toward an unknown fate that would tear her life apart and remake it.
Her little red shoes tapped faint, monotonous clicks on the wet pavement. Every step felt like stepping on icy needles, a sting that ran from her soles straight into her heart.
Now and then she stole a quick glance at the man ahead—Tohsaka Tokiomi. His stride was steady and even, his back straight as a rod.
Even in the damp cold of morning his suit was immaculate, as if he were heading to an important meeting—not to personally hand away his own flesh and blood.
Sunlight tried to pierce the heavy mist, laying a blurred halo over him, but it couldn't dispel the chill that clung to him.
To Sakura, the father she once knew felt distant now—cold, unreachable. He never once looked back. He didn't ask if she could keep up, didn't soothe her nerves, didn't even slow his pace for her small steps.
That silence made her feel more hopeless and helpless than any scolding could.
Before bed last night, Rin's unusually solemn promise still echoed in her ears—
"I'll definitely protect you."
"I absolutely won't let anyone hurt you."
At the time, lying on her soft bed, watching her sister's face in the moonlight, she'd felt warm inside and thought it was just a childish vow between sisters. But now it seemed Rin might already have known. That must be why she had seemed so different.
Thinking of her sister stirred the faintest warmth and hope in Sakura's heart—so faint it was almost drowned by despair. Rin was so capable, so brave. Would she… would she appear like a hero in a story and stop all this?
The thought flickered like a candle in the wind—wobbling, but keeping her from collapsing entirely.
That sliver of hope was quickly crushed by her father's resolute, icy back and by the looming outline ahead—a gloomy mansion crouched like a slumbering beast. The fog seemed thicker around it, carrying a rotten, unsettling smell.
She didn't know how long they walked. It felt like a century, and also like a single suspended instant of pain.
At last, Tokiomi halted before a sprawling estate whose exterior looked shockingly old and decrepit. A high wall of dark stone was slick with moss, laced with the dry vines of creeping ivy.
The wrought-iron gate was scabbed with rust, twisted into intricate, unsettling patterns. The mansion's architecture was oppressive and heavy, exuding—even through the hazy morning mist—a tomb-like stillness and the stink of decay. Less a residence than a relic forgotten by time.
This was the Matou Estate—a place whose appearance alone could give a child nightmares.
Tokiomi turned to face his daughter. His expression was as unreadable as ever, touched only by the solemnity of someone about to complete an important rite.
"Sakura, we're here."
His voice was low and calm, without a ripple of emotion—stating a fact that crushed her.
Two simple words, yet they branded Sakura's heart like a red-hot iron.
!!!
Her heart seized, then plummeted—falling into a bottomless, freezing dark.
Every last scrap of wishful thinking, every impossible fantasy shattered at once.
She lifted her head, timidly. Her small body trembled beyond her control, violet eyes wide with fear. Following her father's gaze into the black maw of the iron gate—like a beast's greedy, open mouth—she thought she saw something moving in the shadowed depths.
And then, slowly, step by dragging step, a hunched, shriveled figure emerged—near inhuman, leaning on a wooden cane twisted into a shape that seemed disturbingly alive.