.

.

By his rough estimate, it had been approximately 30 hours since Kiritsugu last slept. His eyes felt dry and heavy and the day's worth of stubble grew scratchy against his chin.

He had been staying in a cheap motel, which he was using as his base of operations. When he arrived, he wallpapered the windows with newspaper and taped a map of Fuyuki City Proper onto the wall. Photographs of the Masters were taped over various locations, and red sharpie circled and marked the areas where they were most active. Up until now, he had been keeping a close eye on the Tohsakas and the Matous, the only two magus families who seemed to be fighting the war seriously, and Kirei, who for some inexplicable reason was allied with Tohsaka. Archibald, for all his bluster and theatrics, made no secret of his magical atelier, which Maiya had already rigged with plenty of explosives, and as the serial killer Ryuunosuke didn't seem to care about the Grail one way or the other, he posed little serious threat.

That only left the Master of Lancer. Kiritsugu sighed heavily, and stuck a pin into the wallpaper.

"The other Masters seem to be fortifying their strongholds," Maiya said. "There has been little spiritual activity in either of their locations. What do you think we should do?"

"We wait," Kiritsugu said. He picked up his rifle and readjusted his scope.

Kiritsugu stepped out of the restaurant, a paper bag of hamburgers tucked under his arm. By his calculations, he had exactly twenty minutes to eat before reconvening with Maiya's familiars, which she had sent to spy on the Tohsaka and Archibald strongholds. He stuck his hand into the greasy paper bag and pulled out a hamburger, unwrapping the paper and taking a large bite as he walked. Eating and walking made his time more efficient, chewing quickly and swallowing in big, hurried bites.

"...it's your fault we're even out here, I told you not to mess with the Mackenzie's stuff!"

Kiritsugu stopped, then pressed his back against the wall.

Waver Velvet was walking down the street, having a conversation, out loud, with his invisible Servant.

Kiritsugu's mouth thinned. Only an idiot would address his Servant out loud in public. He craned his neck a little, watching the boy pass. He was carrying a large cardboard box, which he seemed to be struggling with. The boy walked, occasionally stopping to hoist the box up against his hip and readjust his grip. Must be heavy, Kiritsugu thought. He took another bite of hamburger and watched.

"Oi! Lancer! Come out here, for a minute."

Lancer materialized in the middle of the sidewalk.

Kiritsugu blinked. Did that boy materialize his Servant in plain view in the middle of the day? There were traffic cameras mounted on the building opposite him, and they were standing in front of various shops and offices, somebody could have seen him.

"Can you help me carry this? It's getting pretty heavy," the boy said.

Clearly the boy was an idiot. Kiritsugu shoved the rest of his hamburger in his mouth and balled up the wrapper.

"Maiya, what's your status?" He pressed his hand over his earpiece. Maiya's voice crackled in his ear.

"Things are going well. The Masters are still within their strongholds. Have you been delayed?"

"I am currently observing the Velvet boy, talking to his Servant." He watched as Lancer hefted the box with his one good arm, walking in full armor and garnering strange looks from the crowd of businessmen walking past him. "There has been a change of plans. I'm going to go observe."

"Affirmative." Kiritsugu folded the paper bag under his arm.

Kiritsugu followed them, keeping a short distance. Both Master and Servant seemed oblivious to Kiritsugu's presence, the former yelling, making loud, irritated statements, while the latter blushed and stammered and kept his head hung in a display of absolute deference. From their conversation, Kiritsugu was able to piece together the events of that morning: evidently Lancer, in an earnest attempt to curry favor with his Master, had attempted to make coffee. Unfortunately, the filter had not been seated properly, and Lancer had neglected to place the pot beneath the coffee maker. What followed was that he essentially made caffeinated mud, which caked and hardened onto the boiler plate. And being the great thinker that he was, Lancer didn't think twice to stick his bare hand into the still-hot base in order to scrape the goop out.

"And you burned your good hand on top of it!" Waver said, as Lancer hung his head even lower, his ears turning red and looking even more embarrassed. After he stuck his bare hand onto the hot boiler plate, Lancer apparently let out an unmanly shriek, woke up their benefactors, and knocked the entire coffee maker onto the floor, shattering the pot and spreading charred black goop all over the linoleum.

The boy, apparently, had gotten adept at using memory spells.

"Thank you for healing me, my lord," Lancer said.

"It's my job, idiot, what good is a Servant with two bum hands?"

"Forgive me, my lord. I only wanted to please you."

"Hmph. Well we're lucky we found this one on sale, hopefully Mackenzie won't notice it's a different brand."

Any other mage would have felt Kiritsugu's killing intent, but the boy was a complete novice, walking beside Lancer completely oblivious. Unfortunately, the only weapon Kiritsugu had on hand was the Contender, and Kiritsugu was not about to waste any of his precious magic bullets to take out the two of them. He unwrapped another hamburger.

Perhaps it was because of the lack of sleep, or perhaps because the two of them together seemed like a complete and utter trainwreck, but Kiritsugu decided to keep following them. Maiya was still keeping watch; she could always notify him should something change.

They were negotiating the steps to a bridge; Kiritsugu watched as Lancer tried to balance the box with his one arm, which began to slip as he walked up the steps. Even though he was a Servant, he was not immune to the effects of the wound of his left hand, which rendered his left arm considerably weaker. The box slipped, Lancer tried to readjust his grip, and just as they were cresting the platform, the box tipped over Lancer's elbow and tumbled unceremoniously down the stairs.

"Crap!" Waver said. Lancer's eyes widened. Waver pushed past him and bounded down the stairs.

"Please don't be broken, please don't be broken, I can't afford to buy another coffee maker, please don't be broken-" Waver ran down the stairs and tore open the cardboard. "Dammit! The pot is cracked!"

"Oh no," Lancer said. He looked stricken. "My lord, what shall we do?"

"We have to fix it," Waver said, and he squatted on the sidewalk.

Impossible! Kiritugu thought. No matter how idiotic this boy may be, surely he cannot be thinking of doing magecraft here!

And he groaned internally as he felt the slight surge of mana, reinforcement magecraft tracing over the structure of the broken pot.

Maybe he should just kill them. Kiritsugu's finger itched toward his Contender. He probably wouldn't even need to waste his bullets - with the way things were going, he could probably just as easily push them into oncoming traffic.

"There is increased activity at the Tohsaka compound." Maiya's voice crackled heavily in his ear. "Kirei appears to be leaving for the Church. What are your orders?"

Kiritsugu sighed, and lowered his guard. "Follow him, but stay at a reasonable distance. I will meet you there."

xXx

.

At the street corner, while Waver was repairing the crack in the glass, Diarmuid felt a shift in the air.

"My lord," Diarmuid said, and Waver looked up. "I believe someone may be following us."

"Who?" Waver said, and he jumped up.

But Kiritsugu had already gone.