Inside the drawing room of the Einzbern Castle.
A map of Fuyuki City was spread across a wide table, marked with several locations and surrounded by laptops and printed documents.
At this moment, the Saber camp—unaware that someone was approaching from the sky—was discussing their next move.
"..."
Due to a slightly too-wide movement, Kiritsugu Emiya let out a heavy, muffled breath to suppress the pain.
"Are your injuries alright, Kiritsugu?" his wife, Irisviel, who served as Saber's proxy Master in public, asked with concern.
"The bleeding has stopped completely, and the muscle damage has been repaired. It's just still throbbing," Kiritsugu replied with a calm shake of his head.
With the Emiya family's Magic Crest and Irisviel's healing magecraft, the slash to his shoulder—which fortunately hadn't hit the bone—had been treated. After emergency procedures, Kiritsugu was back in fighting shape, and there were no complications like anemia to worry about.
The problem was that because of that sudden strike last night, his plan to eliminate Lancer's Master and Servant overnight—thereby breaking the curse on Saber's left hand—had gone up in smoke.
With Kiritsugu injured and unable to move freely, he couldn't leave the task entirely to his assistant, Maiya Hisau. Now, he was explaining the situation in Fuyuki to his wife.
As Japan's second-greatest spiritual land, Fuyuki City had a total of four ley lines suitable for the manifestation of the Holy Grail: the Fuyuki Church, the Shinto Citizen's Hall, the land where the Tohsaka residence (the local overseers) stood, and the Ryudou Temple on Mount Enzou.
As the Holy Grail War progressed into its mid-to-late stages, it would be vital to occupy one of these locations to maximize their camp's advantage.
However, far from forcing any Servants out of the race, Kiritsugu couldn't even see an opening in the current state of the war. Furthermore, the husband and wife could not reach a consensus on whether to prioritize defeating Lancer to restore Saber to full strength or to deal with Caster, who had set his sights on Saber.
To make matters worse, Saber had expressed her dissatisfaction with being used as bait in their tactics. Naturally, Kiritsugu maintained his usual policy of non-communication, ignoring Saber's questioning entirely.
The fact that Caster had broken into the Einzbern Forest with a group of children further emphasized that time was of the essence.
Through a crystal ball using Clairvoyance magecraft, Irisviel, as the mistress of this forest, could peer into any part of the territory via the bounded field. The crystal ball clearly captured Caster moving through the forest, leading a large group of hypnotized boys.
"Irisviel, Caster is trying to lure us out," Saber said.
"They must be... hostages," Irisviel guessed, looking at the children.
"I must go and rescue them myself," Saber immediately requested.
In the crystal ball, Caster suddenly turned his gaze toward Irisviel. He easily saw through the Clairvoyance magecraft being projected through the land and the barrier.
"He saw through the Clairvoyance?" Irisviel grew tense.
Even if it was reasonable given that their opponent was a Caster, it didn't mean they could remain calm. However, just as Caster flashed a grotesque smile at Saber and Irisviel on the other side of the glass, the image suddenly cut out.
"The magecraft was interfered with?" Irisviel was shocked. She tried to restart the spell, but it was useless. "The land... and the forest's barrier. I can't connect to any of it."
"Is that Gilles de Rais... such a sophisticated magus?" Saber was astonished.
In the brief intelligence meeting they'd just held, Kiritsugu had summarized the life and history of the Caster who had revealed his true name.
"Saber, please head there immediately!" Irisviel couldn't care about the technicalities. As a mother, she couldn't stand the thought of children roughly the same age as Illya dying before her eyes, even if she could no longer see them through the crystal ball.
Saber accepted the order instantly and dashed out.
"Maiya, take Irisviel and leave here immediately. Head in the opposite direction from Saber," Kiritsugu ordered, his fingers flying across his laptop as he switched between various security camera feeds inside the castle, looking for other intruders.
Though he didn't speak to Saber, she had made it clear during their meeting after Irisviel woke up that Ludwig intended to seize the Master's rights and become Saber's new Master. While he wasn't sure if the boy had found this place yet, Kiritsugu had to account for the possibility.
"Can't I stay here?" Irisviel asked, confused.
"The castle is no longer safe without Saber," Kiritsugu said. "We don't know if there are other intruders. Regardless, I cannot let you stay in such a dangerous place."
Just as he finished speaking, Irisviel felt someone else breach the barrier.
"Someone else is coming," she whispered, trembling as she told Kiritsugu.
The situation was unfolding exactly as Kiritsugu had feared. Irisviel wasted no more time and, under Maiya Hisau's escort, left the drawing room to retreat from the castle.
Once his wife and assistant had left, Kiritsugu lowered his head again, rapidly scanning all the monitor screens—the main gate, the hall, the corridors, and every floor.
There was no sign of an intruder.
Have they not entered the castle yet? Kiritsugu felt a flicker of unease.
Just then, the door leading to the castle's rooftop garden was pushed open, and a white-haired figure appeared on the monitor.
It was Ludwig.
The youth was moving toward the heart of the castle with a leisurely pace, looking more like a tourist than an attacker.
Kiritsugu was deeply perplexed. Not through the main gate, nor a side entrance, but from... the roof. How had the boy broken into the castle from the top?
The sky?
But there were no helicopters, nor a flight-capable Noble Phantasm like Rider's. What was going on?
Then, Kiritsugu suddenly sucked in a cold breath as he remembered the way Ludwig had descended from the sky before appearing at the harbor the previous night. At the time, while he had noticed it, most of his attention had been occupied by Archer, a Servant of the Holy Grail War. Coupled with the series of events that followed, Kiritsugu had almost forgotten that the boy's battle with Archer had taken place high in the air.
This guy... can he fly? Kiritsugu couldn't wrap his head around it.
In the world of magi, flight was an extremely advanced form of magecraft. For an excellent magus to even descend from a height as light as a feather was no small feat, and usually required the use of Mystic Codes.
So how was this boy doing it?
Before Kiritsugu could puzzle it out, he stared at the screen as if he had seen a ghost.
The youth was like a white specter, appearing under a different camera every second and then vanishing instantly. Though he appeared to be strolling, he was moving through the castle at incredible speed and was rapidly approaching the meeting room where Kiritsugu was stationed.
Kiritsugu had just grabbed his favored Calico M950 when the doors to the drawing room were swung open.
The moment the white-haired youth stepped inside, Kiritsugu raised his weapon and opened fire.
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