"Did you get the back door locked?" Sakura asked, sounding just a bit nervous on the subject.
"Yep, bolted up nicely," Ritsuka confirmed. She wondered about that note in her friend's voice, but now was probably not the time to press her about it.
"All right, then I'll take care of the front. What time are you going to be back home tonight, senpai?"
In a loose moment, Ritsuka briefly considered bursting into a rendition of Doris Day's Que Sera, Sera. Sanity reasserted itself in time for her to respond with a more appropriate level of vagueness. "Hmm, not sure. Probably going to be at the job site for a while."
Sakura nodded slowly. "All right, then. I will probably be here before you, so I'll start making dinner when I arrive."
"Okay. Sakura, is all this really worry about those gas leaks that were on the news this morning?"
Sakura blinked. "Yes," she said after a moment. "Yes, that is what I am worried about. It is so scary." She nodded much more quickly this time.
"Right," said Ritsuka. Still not the right time to press on the subject, but it seemed likely that Sakura was worried about something other than gas leaks. That she wouldn't talk about it directly wasn't all that surprising. Despite having known her almost as long as she'd known her older brother, and despite how friendly they'd become, Ritsuka had long since come to the realization that she knew surprisingly little about Sakura, that the other girl was far from opening up to her. It was a little disturbing. Then again, Ritsuka was less than forthright about her own secrets, so it wasn't as though she had any room to talk.
And they didn't have any room to talk in general as they walked through the residential district and up the long hill to their school. There weren't a lot of other students headed there at this early hour, aside from those who (like Sakura herself) had early morning practice with her club.
"Well," said Ritsuka, as the two young women arrived at the school gate. "I will see you later today, Sakura. Have fun at club."
As she was turning to head along her merry way, however, Sakura spoke up. "Would you … care to pay a visit to the dojo?" Very diffidently spoken, as though terrified of either possible answer.
Ritsuka's initial impulse was to decline the offer, however diffidently made, since ex-members of the archery club had no business visiting the dojo used by said club, and besides that, she had other things to do that morning. Buuuuut. On the other hand, encouraging this sort of thing – making requests of people, as distinct from Sakura's bad habit of pushiness – was part of her long-term agenda for the Matou Sakura Raising Project. And going along with it would help her to link up with her only real ally in the aforementioned project. Ah well, Issei could wait awhile. "All right, but I'm just going in to chat with whoever else happens to be there. I'm not going to do any practice, right?"
"No one would ask that of you, senpai," Sakura replied soothingly, somehow managing to give the impression of someone who wanted to break into extemporaneous dance without making any moves in that direction. "We all want to live."
"Well, thanks," Ritsuka grumbled after a few moments, deciding that the best way to take that was that Sakura meant that they were concerned about her losing her temper, instead of what she really did mean. Nevertheless, she ambled over to the archery range beside Sakura. Talking to Mitsuzuri wouldn't be so bad.
Oh, come on, what are the odds? Ritsuka thought an instant later as she entered the dojo and realized that it would in fact be so bad. Well, the problem wasn't Mitsuzuri Ayako, the archery team captain, whom she both liked and respected, despite how much trouble she'd caused for her in the past. It was the presence of the young woman with whom Ayako had just been conversing, and whom Ritsuka wanted to avoid at just about any cost, and who was now turning the stress of her regard right on her: Tohsaka Rin, honor student and local beauty. A gentle and mild-mannered presence within these hallowed walls, beloved by all and sundry. A school idol – no, a goddess, really.
And, on top of all that, the incredibly scary person who had the power of life and death over people who engaged in magic in this region without being a part of the Mage's Association, like, oh, say, Ritsuka! Discovering that the local representative of the organization that Kiritsugu had basically described as 'those with whom you should never ever have any connections' was actually a young woman only a couple months older than she herself had been a major shock when she'd figured it out a while ago, and she'd assiduously sought to avoid any possible contact with Tohsaka. And yet, here they were, face to face, a silver spoon and, well, a pewter or maybe even wooden one.
Running shrieking out of sight would, alas, cause more problems than it would solve, and so Ritsuka restrained the impulse which urged her to do just that, and painted on a smile. "Good morning, Tohsaka-san," she said in a cheerful, calm tone. "You're up early."
"Yes, I am," Tohsaka replied in the same way that someone might say, 'Hurry up and die.' "Well, I'll be going now. See you later Mitsuzuri-san."
"What, you're not going to stay and watch?" Ayako pressed, utterly oblivious to Ritsuka's attempts to psychically coerce her away from such lines of inquiry.
Tohsaka paused, then glanced in Ritsuka's direction. "Is she going to be doing any practice?" she asked, directing the question at Ayako.
"I hope to persuade her –" Ayako started to reply.
"Then definitely no," Tohsaka interrupted. "I want to live." And with that declaration she departed.
"She probably just meant that she was concerned about you losing your temper, senpai," said Sakura, after a moment.
"Riiiiight."
