Outside the Einzbern castle, the wind was knife-cold.
Kiritsugu Emiya slid into his unremarkable sedan, both hands clamping the wheel so hard the veins stood out on the backs of his hands. His face was dark the whole time, his eyes glittering with a vicious gloom.
The plan had collapsed.
Allies had turned their backs.
The Command Seals were gone.
The target had been taken by a mysterious powerhouse—frustration and humiliation seared his reason like poison fire.
And yet Kiritsugu was still Kiritsugu.
From the depths of despair and anger, an even more obsessive, colder resolve took root.
He started the car.
"Vrrrm—!"
The engine's low roar echoed the beast he was holding down inside.
"Rei Ao… Fuyuki City…" he murmured, those two names flickering with danger in his eyes.
Even without Command Seals, even abandoned by the Einzberns, he would not give up.
The Grail—he would obtain it.
Any obstacle, human or divine—he would remove by any means necessary.
The taillights vanished into the wind and snow beyond the castle grounds, bearing a man's resolve to fully enter the dark toward an unknown future.
…
Morning light returned to Fuyuki, pushing back the hush of the night—
but not the pall and restlessness clouding certain people's hearts.
Sunlight filtered through the window lattice, falling across two sleeping in each other's arms.
Irisviel's silvery hair spilled over the pillow, tangling with Rei Ao's silver. A faint weariness and the lingering blush still colored her exquisite face. Her sleep was peaceful, content—as if she had finally found her true home.
Rei Ao had been awake for some time.
His iridescent eyes watched the homunculus girl in his arms, fingertips absently twining a lock of her hair, his expression unreadable.
In the corner of the room, Saber—still in spirit form—had stood stiffly almost the entire night.
The unexpected turn of events had shaken the king who upheld chivalry like never before.
She couldn't understand it.
It ran counter to everything she knew—between king and vassal, Master and Servant, even ordinary men and women. A nameless irritability—and a sense of loss she would rather not admit—lingered in her chest. When the physical constraint eased, she had rushed out of the room.
…
Meanwhile, in a dim safehouse in Germany, Kiritsugu Emiya had not slept at all. The ashtray was piled with cigarette butts; smoke hung thick in the air. Papers lay spread across the table before him—fragmentary records on Fuyuki's ley lines and the history of the Holy Grail War.
Bloodshot veins laced his eyes, but his gaze was quenched steel—icy and mad.
The Einzberns' betrayal, the disappearance of the Command Seals… None of it broke him. It only drove him deeper into extremity.
The conventional road was cut off.
So he would take the unconventional one.
"Maiya," he rasped into the communicator.
"Change of plan. Abandon all regular channels."
"Activate the black lines. Contact those forbidden seekers in the Clock Tower."
"Tell them I'm willing to pay any price for a way to re-enter the Holy Grail War—or any means to deal with beings not of this world."
On the other end, Maiya Hisau was silent for a moment, clearly shaken by the resolve and danger in his voice.
"Kiritsugu, those people… are true madmen. Dealing with them is like seeking skin from a tiger."
"I know," Kiritsugu said, his tone flat.
"But it's our only chance."
"The Grail—I must have it."
"For that, I don't mind selling my soul to the devil."
He crushed out his cigarette, a near-ruinous light flashing in his eyes.
"And get ready. We infiltrate Fuyuki as soon as possible."
"I'll find that man called Rei Ao myself."
…
Fuyuki City, the Church.
Risei Kotomine—the supervisor of this Holy Grail War—was frowning deeply. He had just received an encrypted message from the Holy Church headquarters. Its contents rattled him.
His son, Kirei Kotomine, had completely lost contact after going to the Tohsaka residence; every trace of his presence had been erased by some force.
At the same time, the Tohsaka head, Tokiomi Tohsaka, was confirmed dead. The suspected killer was the Matou family's former head, Zouken Matou. But Zouken had also vanished, presumed dead.
In a single day, of the Three Great Families, one head was dead and another missing. This was an upheaval unprecedented in the history of the Holy Grail War.
What unsettled him even more were hints that some heterogenous existence had intervened in Fuyuki's Grail system.
"A heterogenous existence…" Risei murmured, staring through the stained glass toward Fuyuki, a foreboding heavy in his heart. This Holy Grail War would likely be more uncontrollable than any before.
…
Asleep, Irisviel's lashes trembled. She slowly opened her ruby eyes.
The first thing she saw was Rei Ao's calm face close at hand. Memories of the previous night flooded back, painting her pale cheeks a vivid rose. Yet her heart brimmed with an unprecedented sense of ease and contentment.
Like a lazy cat, she instinctively snuggled deeper into Rei Ao's warm embrace.
Almost at the same moment, Rei Ao opened his eyes as well. The blue of them was clear and wakeful, with none of the fog of sleep. He looked down at the doll-delicate girl in his arms, the corner of his mouth lifting in a gentle arc. He patted her back lightly.
"Mn…"
Irisviel blushed, then gave a sweet smile tinged with shyness and reliance.
"Good morning, Rei Ao-san."
"Good morning, Iri," he answered naturally, using a more intimate form of address.
He got up and draped a garment over her bare shoulders.
"How do you feel?"
"Mm… good," Irisviel replied in a small voice, pulling the clothes—still warm with Rei Ao's scent—close around her, her heart filling with a strange new warmth. She was beginning to understand what it meant to have feelings of her own.
Then she finally remembered Saber.
"Saber…?"
"She's fine," Rei Ao said with a meaningful smile.
"She might just need some time to get used to the new 'situation.'"
Sensing the unsettled fluctuation of a spiritual core in the corner, he knew the King of Knights was still working through it.