"Let her go. I'm your real target, aren't I?"
Just as Risei Kotomine was about to crush the homunculus maid's skull, a voice rang out.
".....!"
The old priest turned his head and saw the person he most wanted to see standing there. Shirou Amamiya.
Beside the red-haired boy stood the other homunculus, the one Risei Kotomine had nearly killed moments ago.
He had assumed they had already escaped, and was just about to vent his frustration on Leysritt, who had stayed behind to cover their retreat. Instead, they had come back. For once, even Risei Kotomine's narrow eyes opened a little in surprise.
"I didn't expect you to return. You barely escaped with your life. Was it for the sake of this artificial lifeform?"
"That's right. Put her down."
Shirou repeated himself in a threatening tone.
"Otherwise, I'll run somewhere you'll never find me, and everything you did in the Holy Grail War will soon become public knowledge."
"..."
After a brief silence, Risei Kotomine flicked his right arm and hurled Leysritt several meters away onto the road. Sella immediately ran over and began using healing Magecraft.
"Sella, why... Take Shirou and... run..."
Leysritt looked confused, her voice weak and broken. Sella, however, firmly shook her head.
"We are not leaving you behind." She clasped her sister's hand and said it softly.
"Risei Kotomine."
The elderly priest, white-haired and heavily muscled, spoke with the calm ease of a victor.
"This introduction may be late, but I am the overseer of this war. I look forward to our acquaintance."
Shirou replied,
"You call what you've been doing the work of an overseer? I don't see a trace of fairness in it.
And you hurt one of my girls. That is not something a simple apology is going to settle."
".....!"
The oppressive pressure coming off Shirou made Risei Kotomine suck in a breath and immediately jump backward.
Until now, he had only heard rumors about Shirou Amamiya from his allies. But the moment he saw him in person, he instantly realized that this eight-year-old child possessed an extraordinary kind of power.
With open contempt, Shirou sneered,
"So after getting exposed, you flew into a rage and came here to silence me.
That's exactly why I dislike religious people. They so often seem to be either fanatics or hypocrites. Is there not a single reasonable one among you?"
"...Hmph."
The killing intent in Risei Kotomine's eyes deepened.
No one was allowed to question his faith. Shirou, with that sweeping insult aimed at the Church as a whole, had crossed a line he would not tolerate.
But he quickly forced himself calm and said,
"If we are speaking of violations, then you were the one who broke the rules first."
"Oh?"
Risei Kotomine stared at him.
"Shirou Amamiya, you summoned an irregular Servant in this Holy Grail War, did you not?
Up until now, I have chosen to overlook that.
But your conduct in this Holy Grail War has already reached the point where I can no longer pretend not to see it."
Shirou looked exasperated.
"I do not remember tampering with the summoning ritual in any way."
With his narrow eyes fixed on Shirou, Risei Kotomine said each word slowly and clearly.
"If I am not mistaken, you fused with your Servant, did you not?
That would explain the source of your absurd power.
Just as I thought, the Servant you summoned must be the type called a demon or an anti-hero.
Just like the Avenger from the last Holy Grail War. No, even worse in nature.
To occupy the body of an innocent young child. What a despicable monster."
Shirou: "..."
Lady Avalon: [Who are you calling a demon!?]
Shirou: He might actually have a point.
Lady Avalon: [No, I'm not! I'm not! Master, whose side are you on!?]
Risei Kotomine continued, righteous and severe.
"While I am curious what kind of Heroic Spirit you really are, it hardly matters. I only need to strip the Command Spells from the back of your hand, then interrogate you at my leisure.
Let me ask just in case. You have no intention of surrendering your Command Spells and your Servant, correct?"
Lady Avalon: [... gulp]
"She may be a terrible Servant, but she is still my Servant. No one else gets to decide her fate or mine."
"I am the arbiter of this Holy Grail War. Your fate, and your sins, will be judged by me."
Shirou gave a helpless shrug and sighed.
"Yesterday there was already some golden flashy guy saying he would judge me too. Did all of you arrange this in advance?
An arrogant ancient king is one thing, but a priest ought to stick to handing out candy and bread on weekends instead of doing pointless extra work."
On the other side, Risei Kotomine had already taken his martial stance.
As for Shirou, he had no stance to take at all, because his right arm still had not fully recovered.
That was the source of Risei Kotomine's confidence.
Even if the thing before him was an evil spirit that had taken on flesh, it was still missing one arm. In that state, it could not possibly defeat him.
The old priest attacked first. Every muscle in his body tightened as he drove a punch straight at Shirou's face.
Unlike his son Kirei Kotomine, Risei Kotomine had no background as an Executor.
He had never slaughtered vampires, and even his experience fighting other people was pitifully scarce.
The only thing that could truly be called real combat had been sixty years ago, when the young priest in his early twenties served as the overseer of the Third Holy Grail War.
Compared to Kirei Kotomine, who excelled at killing and exorcism, this elderly priest was simply powerful.
He had cultivated a martial art meant for self-discipline to a realm even the finest Executors could never hope to reach.
Those iron fists wrapped in the Holy Shroud had reached the very limit of what a human being could achieve.
"...!?"
And yet, Shirou cleanly dodged the punch just before it could hit his face. More than that, he projected a sword into his left hand and slashed upward at Risei Kotomine's chest.
"Ugh...!"
Risei Kotomine leapt backward and narrowly avoided the rising slash.
Only after opening up some distance from the red-haired boy did his expression twist, cold sweat breaking out across his back.
"Oh..."
Shirou did not press the attack. Instead, he shook out his left wrist, checking on his condition.
For someone as skilled in dual wielding as Shirou, losing his right hand did not cost him much of his fighting strength.
"You really are sharp, just what you would expect from a master of martial arts... Is the style you use called Chinese Boxing?
"It's impressive. No wonder Leysritt lost to you."
"But you do feel a little slow. Is it because you're getting old?"
"You little brat...!"
"Picking on an old man is not really my hobby. Why not send your son instead? He should be stronger than you by now, right?"
Enraged by Shirou's taunts, Risei Kotomine ground his teeth. His gaze changed at once, and a thick killing intent began to pour from his body.
"Fine. Then I'll show you my true skill, and the reason I was chosen to oversee the Holy Grail War!"
Risei Kotomine kicked off the ground and charged straight at him.
Shirou met him with complete composure, sword in his left hand.
To anyone watching, it was a scene of pure madness. An old man past eighty and a child of only eight were trying to kill each other.
The fists he had tempered over decades were like cannon shells. With the Holy Shroud amplifying them, every punch Risei Kotomine threw boomed like thunder and made the air shudder.
Shirou parried them as if it were nothing.
The old priest's fist slammed into Shirou's projected sword, scattering sparks.
To conserve Mana, Shirou had projected an ordinary weapon this time. In terms of the Servant system, it was equivalent to an E rank Noble Phantasm.
Even so, it was still a Noble Phantasm. Yet after blocking only a few punches, it shattered into dust.
Shirou's eyes narrowed on Risei Kotomine's wrists.
So that was the secret inside those red strips of cloth. Were Command Spells recovered from the previous three Holy Grail Wars hidden in his arms...?
It was only with that strange cloth and the reinforcement of more than a dozen Command Spells that Risei Kotomine could display combat ability on the level of a Servant.
Is there any way to get around the Holy Shroud and strike Risei Kotomine directly? Shirou sank into thought.
"Hah!"
Risei Kotomine did not let the opening slip by and threw another punch.
But Shirou immediately projected a fresh blade and blocked it.
"What's wrong? Is defending yourself all you can do?"
Risei Kotomine roared as he kept up the relentless assault.
"I heard it from a pilot in the Air Self-Defense Force! You have other forms, don't you? Not this child's body, but an adult one!"
"A monster that could slaughter sea demons, and now a dying old man has you cornered?"
"Master, use the Dead Count Shapeshifter's Command Seal," Lady Avalon urged.
"No. There's no need."
Shirou shook his head.
"That isn't something I'm going to show you..."
He spoke calmly.
"Against someone on your level, I have no need to use that."
"I see. Then die in that child's form, evil spirit!"
Risei Kotomine suddenly lashed out with a kick. Shirou reacted at once and caught it with his sword.
The sweeping kick shattered the projected weapon, but it also rebounded with a metallic clang.
"...Gh!"
A sharp, cramping pain shot through Shirou's left wrist.
As long as he had Mana, he could keep projecting swords. But he had only one arm left to swing them.
An eight year old body was still too fragile, Shirou thought. If this kept up, things were going to turn very bad.
Fortunately, because he weighed so little, the impact blew him several meters away, giving him a brief chance to breathe.
But at that moment, Shirou realized he had underestimated the unfathomable depth of Bajiquan.
Nearly ten meters separated them, yet the old priest, built like a bear, closed the gap with a single step.
It was a supreme Bajiquan technique known as the "live step," a kind of footwork that made it look as though he were gliding across the ground without moving his feet at all.
With the Holy Shroud wrapped around both hands, Risei Kotomine surged toward the now unarmed Shirou in silence, like death itself.
At this distance, fist techniques unquestionably held the advantage over swordsmanship, and Bajiquan was famous even among fist styles for excelling at point blank range.
Risei Kotomine's iron fists, honed to the utmost limit a human could reach, crashed toward the boy's chest with all the force of Bajiquan.
"...Shirou!!"
Sella's scream could not stop him.
The instant those Holy Shroud wrapped fists shot out, Shirou's whole body went flying.
It was the Jingang Eight Forms technique, Charging Punch.
If a Servant unsuited for close combat, someone like Caster, took that blow, it might have shattered their Spirit Core on the spot.
Shirou had spent the past year training without pause, but his body still could not compare even to the frailest Servant. If he took that strike head on, death should have been the only possible outcome.
Or at least, it should have been.
"How is that possible...?"
The old priest who had just sent the boy flying stood rooted to the spot, his face twisted with disbelief.
There had been no feeling of impact from his fist.
At that distance, a punch like that could not possibly miss, not even for an amateur.
No matter how he thought about it, it made no sense. Yet the truth was that Risei Kotomine had felt nothing like the sensation of smashing a rib cage or pulging internal organs.
On the other side, the red-haired boy, who should have died on the spot, slowly pushed himself back to his feet. That only confirmed the priest's suspicion.
As Shirou wiped the blood from the corner of his mouth, he gave a stubborn grin.
"Looks like I have some talent for boxing too."
"..."
A shaken look came over Risei Kotomine's face as he muttered,
"...Just now. Did you imitate my technique?"
At the very instant he was about to be blown away, Shirou, a boy who knew nothing about boxing, had used a Bajiquan secret he had only seen a second earlier.
His legs had looked completely still, yet he had slid backward several meters like a ghost.
By doing that, he had shed most of the force behind Risei Kotomine's punch.
[Moving Stance]
It was a profound technique that Risei Kotomine, a master of boxing, had attained only after more than a decade of ascetic training and constant refinement, only reaching it at the end of his pursuit of the martial path.
And yet the skill he had once taken pride in had been understood by Shirou after a single glance, then perfectly copied in its first real use.
No wonder Risei Kotomine was stunned.
After all, he had never heard of an evil spirit or a vampire being a genius at boxing. That was not a Servant ability.
Whether Shirou had fused with a Servant or been possessed was almost beside the point. What truly frightened him were the eyes of this eight-year-old child. That realization had already burned itself into Risei Kotomine's mind.
The old priest's broad shoulders trembled slightly.
"You learned it just by seeing it once?"
Hearing that, Shirou tilted his head in confusion.
"Not once. Twice, right...?
"You already used it once when you attacked the girls at my house, didn't you?"
"If you have seen the same move demonstrated twice, even the dumbest loser should be able to figure it out."
"That's impossible!"
Risei Kotomine shouted without the slightest concern for maintaining a priest's dignity.
Shirou blinked.
"Huh...? It's impossible?"
He had honestly thought it was only natural.
After all, among the people Shirou knew, there was a certain witch who could see through the structure of Magecraft and make it her own after only one look.
If that was the case, then as her knight, being able to learn an enemy's martial art after seeing it twice did not seem strange at all.
"Anyway, if you hadn't gone out of your way to attack Sella, I'd probably be dead from that punch already."
As he projected a new weapon, Shirou calmly summed it up.
"That was the reason for your defeat."
My defeat?
Risei Kotomine dismissed the idea outright.
If Shirou Amamiya had been five years older, or if his right arm had not been disabled from the start, then perhaps he would have been the one in real danger.
...What a pity.
All he could say was that this brat had truly terrible luck, running into him of all people.
To have such extraordinary talent in martial arts, only to be cut down at this age.
Risei Kotomine felt a trace of regret.
He had heard that Shirou Amamiya was an orphan with no parents.
If they had not met in the setting of the Holy Grail War...
For a fleeting instant, Risei Kotomine had even considered taking him in as an adopted son.
Just as he had with Kirei, he could have passed on all his martial arts and the teachings of God.
With Shirou Amamiya's unparalleled talent, once he reached adulthood he could undoubtedly join the Holy Church's superhuman organization, the [Burial Agency].
What a waste.
Risei Kotomine cast aside the last bit of pity he felt for the young boy and spoke coldly.
"My defeat? Do you really think a brat like you could kill me?"
"Yeah, that's true... The one who kills you won't be me."
Shirou spoke calmly, but his eyes were not on Risei Kotomine. They were fixed on the thick darkness behind the priest.
"...Bang!!"
The explosive crack of gunfire tore through the silence of the night.
Risei Kotomine collapsed on the spot, crimson blood spreading out beneath him.
"Though I only used it because I was following your orders, and because I had no choice if I wanted to keep my identity hidden, I have to admit..."
Hassan of the Hundred Faces spun the pistol around in her hand and smiled.
"Shirou, this thing really is much easier to use than a dagger."