At the center of the empty theater, golden flames burned.
They appeared upon the still, white body of the motionless girl.
Her flesh gradually became translucent and began to fade, and in its place, a golden chalice manifested within the flames. An ornate golden cup, connected to the leylines of the civic hall, radiating pure magical energy.
Only six Heroic Spirit Servant souls had been collected, and so the Greater Grail was not drawn into motion by the descent. But it was more than sufficient to achieve the kind of miracle that changed the world from within.
This was the Holy Grail War of Fuyuki City. The all-purpose wish-granting machine that one Master-and-Servant pair after another had fought and died to reach. And now it appeared quietly, waiting in stillness for the victor to claim it.
Only, strangely: after Irisviel transformed into the Grail, the chalice hovering in midair at the center of the civic hall began to tremble. Within the cup walls, a black-red viscous liquid appeared from nowhere, surging outward as though multiplying, spilling rapidly over the rim.
The magical formation's array was quickly engulfed. That seemingly inexhaustible dark mud poured and poured. The vast stage, and the audience seating surrounding the stage --
In less than a few minutes, all of it had become part of what the mud swallowed.
The Grail had successfully descended.
It was just that nobody seemed to have noticed that this so-called all-purpose wish-granting machine appeared to have a small problem.
"Bang!"
In the exhibition hall on the floor below the stage, the battle between the mage-killer and the Holy Church agent had entered its most heated stage. With the help of Innate Time Control and Kirei's deliberate avoidance of vital points as he drew out the fight, the two of them had reached a back-and-forth exchange, and Kiritsugu found himself being toyed with like a mouse caught by a cat.
Another large-caliber round came. Kirei had no time to dodge, nor time to draw new Black Keys.
He closed in on Kiritsugu using footwork and activated a Command Seal once more.
Physical functions reinforced. Reflexes accelerated. The instantaneous explosive force of the flexor carpi radialis and pronator teres amplified. No time to reinforce the cassock's bulletproof sleeve. The rest came down to raw technique.
A bullet traveling at two thousand five hundred inches per second was swept into a spiraling vortex.
Even so, the .30-06 round tore through the Kevlar fiber of his sleeve and continued on its path, colliding violently with his hardened arm, producing a grinding sound like millstones working against each other.
The sparks that scattered in all directions defied ordinary physical law. A kinetic energy of roughly three thousand pounds per square inch yielded to the supernatural phenomenon Kirei produced, and Kiritsugu watched as the Contender's second shot was physically redirected off its trajectory to strike elsewhere, feeling a chill crawl down his spine.
Bajiquan. A martial technique requiring exceptionally high mastery. Though it had not reached the divine realm of a Heroic Spirit Servant, it was more than enough to qualify as a silent killing art without peer.
Combined with Kirei's inexplicable full arm of Command Seals.
The gap between the two of them was being magnified without limit. Kiritsugu felt as though he were looking up at a sheer mountain face. Compared to a research-type Clock Tower Lord like Kayneth who was not built for killing, or a pure chaotic entertainment seeker like Francesca Prelati, the pressure Kirei put him under was completely maxed out -- because just as Kirei had said, they really were quite alike.
A Holy Church agent and a mage-killer were, in essence, both types of executioner.
"Francesca Prelati? Heh. How amusing. She was nothing more than an American mage who only joined this Holy Grail War near its very end."
"Can she be Illyasviel's Master? No. She cannot, and you know it, Kiritsugu. Stop deceiving yourself. I am the one and only Master who was with Illyasviel from beginning to end. I am the true Master of Assassin!"
Taking advantage of a moment when Kiritsugu was reloading, Kirei frowned slightly and in an instant closed the distance, launching a punch that crashed into the man's left arm, the heavy force rotating three times on impact.
This was the close-range strike of ancient martial arts. In Bajiquan, Kirei's mastery was second only to his father Risei Kotomine, and without question the strongest in close-range combat among all the Masters remaining in this Holy Grail War. Even Kiritsugu was not on the same level.
Bang!
The sound of shattering bone and magical shockwave produced simultaneously. Kiritsugu was hurled backward ten or more meters to crash into a concrete wall, the submachine gun tumbling from hands that could no longer hold it.
"Click."
Time Alter, Triple Triple Accel.
But in the instant of that backward flight, the time magic quietly activated once more.
A round grenade had its pin pulled. By the time Kirei looked down to react, he saw a flash of light at his feet rapidly expanding.
"BOOM BOOM BOOM BOOM BOOM BOOM BOOM!"
"I told you. You can't fool me. And since you know about Francesca Prelati, that great mage, I can only assume the Holy Church has a file on her. That you could identify her Heroic Spirit Servant's true identity is not surprising. This is nothing but a tactic to scatter the enemy's attention."
Forcing down the agonizing pain of a broken arm, Kiritsugu lay flat until the grenade's blast dispersed, then slowly and expressionlessly wiped the blood from the corner of his mouth and climbed back to his feet.
Besides, what Assassin? This was laughable. In what way did Illyasviel resemble an Assassin in the slightest.
A mage could enhance themselves to fight a Heroic Spirit Servant. But the Assassin class stats? Those were the most pitiful numbers in the game. Where did an Assassin find the ability to trade blows with all three Knight classes?
Besides, in the Fuyuki Holy Grail War, as everyone knew, the Assassin class always summoned one of the successive generations of Hassan-i-Sabbah. So what, was Kirei's implication that Illyasviel, a modern Heroic Spirit Servant, had somehow become a Hassan? A lie with no grounding in reality whatsoever, something not even Kayneth would believe.
"Nonsense! When did she ever come to the Holy Church to be registered? She is the Holy Church's wanted criminal right now!"
"The time the illegal-class Gilles de Rais was hunted down and the Command Seal reward was issued. You cannot tell me she did not come to the Holy Church, or that the Holy Church did not find her and distribute the reward. From that alone, even if the Church had no records initially, it would absolutely have conducted an investigation when distributing that reward."
"She never came to collect! The only party who received Command Seals at that time was your Einzbern family!"
"Heh heh. The mouth is on a Holy Church member's body, so you can say whatever you please, can't you? Besides, by acknowledging that she never came to collect the Command Seals, aren't you implicitly confirming in your own mind that you already know she is the Heroic Spirit Servant's true Master?"
"...You!"
Supported by the cassock and reinforcement magic, having avoided the majority of the shockwave, Kirei's voice carried a trace of agitation. This should have been a perfectly enjoyable situation.
But because of that out-of-nowhere Francesca, he was being made to swallow a fly at the very moment he was about to taste the finest meal.
Damn it.
Kiritsugu didn't believe he was Illyasviel's Master. With that as the premise, everything Kirei said was lies, including the claim that Illyasviel had ordered him to kill Irisviel -- which became a complete psychological tactic with no credibility.
Yet in reality, Kiritsugu's mind hadn't been destabilized at all. If anything, it was Kirei's own mood that had been soured.
Interfering wretch. That damn Francesca. You better hope I never get my hands on you.
"Kiritsugu, you have to believe me. I really am Illyasviel's Master. I am the one who summoned her. Francesca is just a chaotic interloper!"
Kirei forced down the nauseated feeling and tried to salvage some of his good mood.
"That is what the illegal-class Gilles de Rais also claimed. He maintained to the end that he was the Caster. But from first to last, aside from the Noble Phantasm's innate magic, he could not use even the most basic reinforcement magic, artifact construction, or any other magical technique."
Kiritsugu stated his counterpoint without expression, his eyes showing a trace of mockery and disdain, and a faint inexplicable pity for someone with a broken thought process.
Poor thing. Just like Gilles de Rais. Living inside their own delusion.
"...But Gilles de Rais really WAS the Caster!"
Kirei ground his teeth as the flame of anger in his heart was lit.
"That was Illyasviel's plan! At the time she didn't want to reveal her true class and make an enemy of Tokiomi Tohsaka. She also wanted to use the Holy Church's authority to directly eliminate a Heroic Spirit Servant from the game!"
Joy was relative.
Making others feel something unexpected, shocked, afraid, despairing -- that was the pleasure Kirei wanted. But Kiritsugu's current state gave him absolutely no joy at all. Because when Irisviel died there had been no Francesca to interfere, and simply revealing Illyasviel's true name would have been enough for anyone to believe him. But now that a self-proclaimed Caster mage had already appeared first, the credibility of being the second person to make such a claim was immediately dragged down.
"Right. Yes. Good. Fine. Gilles de Rais is Caster, Illyasviel is Assassin, you're right about everything, everyone else's Holy Grail War is fake, and only you and Gilles de Rais are fighting the real Holy Grail War."
Noticing the flicker of pity in Kiritsugu's eyes -- the pity for someone with a broken thought process.
Hearing that response, that essentially said ah yes, sure, right.
Kirei felt an inexplicable tightness in his chest. This was not the expression he had anticipated from Kiritsugu. It should have been like Irisviel's, like Tokiomi's -- that unexpected, ultimately despairing grief. Not the reverse, with him being the one fed something foul instead.
"How does your head even work, Kiritsugu? Can you not connect the dots? Can you really not stop deceiving yourself? Is it so very difficult to connect why Illyasviel understood every Master so intimately, why at the port battle she could infiltrate and attempt to assassinate both you and Gilgamesh, why her Master never appeared throughout the entire war?"
"Oh? Then how do you explain your full arm of Command Seals? You wouldn't be suggesting that Illyasviel, as your Servant, somehow left your Seals not only unused but also multiplying, would you?"
Kiritsugu spoke calmly, ignoring Kirei's expression that looked like it wanted to devour him.
Quietly reloading his magical artifact firearms, continuing to use words to draw the enemy's attention.
Besides, the examples Kirei cited were all poorly chosen. Illyasviel was a Heroic Spirit Servant who had come from the future. It was entirely natural that she would have intimate knowledge of every Master in the Fourth Holy Grail War. As for infiltrating for an assassination and the Master never appearing -- why didn't he mention how many times Illyasviel had fought in direct open battle?
If Illyasviel were an Assassin, then where was her Presence Concealment skill, and all the other disguise and deception-related class skills? Had anyone experienced them in full, even once?
What, Tokiomi had experienced it? Then bring Tokiomi here and let him testify.
Can't bring him? Then you have nothing. It's just your word.
A lie that everyone considers normal functions as a lie. A lie that everyone considers abnormal means the speaker's thought process is simply broken.
"These are my father Risei Kotomine's Command Seals. Transferred to me after Francesca assassinated him. My original Seals had already been reduced to one."
"Francesca killed Risei? Yes, yes, another new delusion. Having delusions as a member of the clergy is perfectly normal. After the Holy Grail War ends, please cooperate with a psychological doctor for treatment. I know a few very good ones in America I can recommend. You can see them at a discounted rate..."
Bang!
Before he finished speaking, mid-way through deliberately provoking Kirei, Kiritsugu seized the instant Kirei's attention was drawn back by the words, activated Innate Time Control, and fired another large-caliber round.
"Damn it!"
Kirei first blinked in surprise, then his temper ignited, and another Command Seal vanished from his arm as he reinforced his body to charge out once more, attempting to deflect the bullet as he had before and then knock Kiritsugu to the ground to work over slowly.
However, this time he was too slow. And because of the emotional turbulence, he failed to prepare in time.
Thwick!
That large-caliber bullet was not deflected. Instead it drove straight through, following the angle of his wrist joint through the skin and tearing out through the elbow, ripping his flesh as it exited.
Blood was hurled in all directions by the impact, and the Command Seal that had been supplying the magical energy vanished as though severed.
What?
Sensing that his right hand's muscles could no longer move, as though the nerves had died completely, Kirei's eyes widened. Not "as though" -- part of the muscles had actually died.
What kind of bullet was this, that it could pierce his body reinforced with Command Seals and tempered through countless years of training? But before his shock could even resolve, from above him a round grenade and its empty pull-ring came flying swiftly from Kiritsugu's hand.
"Emiya Kiritsugu!"
"As a member of the Holy Church, have you never heard an old medieval saying? The one who wronged you understands better than you do exactly how wronged you are."
The grenade detonated. Kiritsugu hit the ground again, though the fragments and the blast at this range still caught him.
In combat, not being swayed by the enemy's words was a killer's basic discipline.
Equally, it was a Holy Church agent's basic discipline.
What was surprising was that Kirei Kotomine, a Holy Church agent who had survived countless battles, seemed to have forgotten this fundamental principle. He had been moved by nothing more than an enemy's refusal to believe him, his judgment thrown off, as though a machine that had never had emotions had suddenly developed them and was desperately, compulsively pursuing the possibilities those emotions could bring.
Huff. Huff. Huff. Huff...
The blast dissipated. Over three places on his body were now embedded with fragments. The internal shockwave had rattled every organ. Kiritsugu was slammed into the cracked wall again, blood rising uncontrollably in his throat, panting, sweat covering his face.
He could not beat Kirei in a straight fight. He could only use methods like this to find openings. And it seemed his judgment had not been wrong. This was indeed the way to narrow the gap between himself and Kirei.
"One Calico lost. Competitor needs reloading. Remaining weapons: one knife and two grenades."
Kiritsugu forced himself back onto his feet once more.
His broken left arm hung limp at his side. His only remaining right arm, trembling, tossed the Contender pistol aside and drew the knife at his waist.
Close combat was not his specialty. But he understood clearly that he had at most one more use of Innate Time Control left. His body's burden had once again reached its limit. Kirei would absolutely not give him another chance to reload.
Other than this primitive method of fighting with everything he had left, there was nothing else he could do.
"Twelve Black Keys remaining inside the cassock. Nine backup Command Seals remaining."
Kirei also climbed back up from over twenty meters away, supporting his completely destroyed right arm and drawing three Black Keys from inside his cassock. Blood was oozing from his forehead -- clearly he too had taken significant wounds. His gaze was fixed hard and unblinking on the gasping Kiritsugu.
He understood now that he had been too reckless in these last exchanges. He had been confident of victory and had not taken into account, through insufficient intelligence, that Kiritsugu still had a special artifact capable of breaking through magical defenses.
But there was nothing to be done. He had been suppressed for too long. Like someone who had stayed clean for half a year and suddenly relapsed, the continuous sensation of pleasure had made him too intoxicated.
If Illyasviel had let him release some of that tension along the way, he would not have become this frenzied now.
But that madwoman Illyasviel, with her twisted sense of entertainment, threatened to cut him down at the slightest provocation. Making it impossible to find any opportunity to release, too afraid that one misstep would get him actually killed.
"Heh heh. It seems you do believe me, after all. I had been careless, hadn't I. As a mage-killer, why would you waste this much time talking with me? After all, we're naturally born villains of the same kind."
He licked the blood from the blade of the Black Key without concern.
Kirei genuinely felt, from the bottom of his heart, that this man Kiritsugu was very much like himself.
He had been born without feelings, and had entered the Holy Grail War to search for them.
Kiritsugu had been born with rich, abundant feelings, but had been surrendering them one by one through the chapters of his life.
What each of them sought was present in the other, and yet each was in the process of abandoning it. Both had once been extremists who sought self-destruction. Now they had met in this Holy Grail War, and it was precisely for this reason that he was so captivated by Kiritsugu.
Unlike killing Irisviel outright or crippling Tokiomi, he had genuinely wanted to have a real conversation with this fellow, to find some different kind of color in the other man.
"You should know it already, shouldn't you. You're still walking toward self-destruction right now."
"Illyasviel's appearance means your defeat in this Holy Grail War. Because if you had been able to win, the Einzbern family's wish to save the world would have been granted, and a future Illyasviel would have had no possibility of becoming a Heroic Spirit Servant."
The origin of Miss Illya's existence was something Kirei had already pieced together in broad strokes.
Similar to Kiritsugu's thinking. Both presumed she had accomplished something in the future that brought her close to a great feat, and was passed down in legend.
Given the nature of that strange dream, and the malice she carried, the feat might have been of a scale he couldn't even imagine.
And an existence filled with that kind of malice clearly could not have come from a world already saved by the Einzberns. From this, it could be inferred that the Einzbern family had not won the Fourth Holy Grail War. Which was why he felt free to act with such ease.
With Kiritsugu, who belonged to the Einzbern camp, already confirmed to have no chance of winning, all that remained was either him or Kayneth. Kiritsugu had no resources to face Kayneth. The final victor could only come from between him and Kayneth.
"I won't let her end up that way. As long as I'm still alive, whatever it takes, I'll go to the Einzbern main house in Germany and take her away."
"You're that confident you'll survive?"
"Defeat is not the same as death. At least, after I've found the answer to everything I've spent my life pursuing, if I still have the ability to act, I intend to do everything I can still manage."
"Heh heh... then I'll crush that hope of yours. And then wish upon the Grail to let your wife and daughter die in agony right before your eyes."
Kirei took his Bajiquan stance and finally began to fight in earnest.
Kiritsugu too steadied his breath and composure, knife in hand, his eyes cold and sharp.
Bang!
Kirei erupted with sudden ferocity, crossing the distance in an instant and launching his attack.
Kiritsugu activated his final Innate Time Control as well, driving the knife toward Kirei's heart, ignoring the terrifying iron fist aimed at his own skull.
"CRASH!"
The final battle erupted -- but in the very next instant, the ceiling lights of the hall shattered.
Black mud crushed through the ceiling, and before either Kiritsugu or Kirei could even react, the black-red tide completely engulfed the entire floor.
In the moment both of them were touched by the black mud, their consciousness was swallowed effortlessly by it.
"Illyasviel. Look."
"We are about to be born into the world."
At the same time, inside the Grail, Irisviel, dressed in white, smiled with overflowing joy.
Not far from her, the barefoot little girl was still crouching with her small head buried between her arms.
"The Einzbern family's thousand-year wish. Your wish. Kiritsugu's wish. All of them can now be granted!"
"My daughter. Here, at last, we become those who will embrace the new world in happiness