"Rin?"
"So now, the Holy Grail War is going to be abolished?"
Rin and Sakura's mother, Tohsaka Tokiomi's wife Aoi Tohsaka, looked worriedly at Rin Tohsaka, who stood on a ladder searching through the bookshelves for something.
"Yeah, that was more or less what happened."
Rin Tohsaka turned to look at her mother and smiled.
Aoi Tohsaka still did not look entirely reassured.
"Don't worry, Mother. It's already over. It's just that now—I, the head of the Tohsaka Family, need to make the final sacrifice."
"After all, managing Fuyuki City's underground Leylines has always been the Tohsaka Family's responsibility."
"Ah, found it."
Rin Tohsaka pulled a book from a gap in the shelf, then hugged a stack of books and hurried down the ladder.
"Responsibility..."
As she savored that word, Rin Tohsaka pressed her lips together. Her gaze upon her eldest daughter held both relief and melancholy.
—The head of the Tohsaka Family.
She had always believed that title to be a restraint on her daughter, because Rin Tohsaka had always seemed excessively...
As a mother, she could not quite put that feeling into words.
There was no doubt that Rin Tohsaka took pride in her identity as the head of the Tohsaka Family. Yet precisely because of that, she often seemed overly intent on pursuing that sense of pride and honor.
But now... something seemed to have changed.
She... had become composed.
"Let me carry some of those."
She took half the books from her daughter—from her family head's arms.
"Ah—thanks, Mom."
"It's nothing. Are we going to the study now?"
"Yeah."
Rin Tohsaka walked ahead.
Watching her daughter's back, Aoi Tohsaka—felt as if she finally understood something.
That was—
Her daughter seemed to have truly become a qualified head of the Tohsaka Family, even without relying on so-called