A black-haired man with sunken features languidly stared out at the glass window of a hotel elevator. A subtle feeling of vertigo washed over him as the metal box steadily ascended. To most people, the feeling wasn't really much to talk about, but to him, it was comparable to the weight of the world pressing down on his shoulders.
Emiya Kiritsugu breathed out a strained sigh.
He slumped against the wall; his haggard visage reflected back at him through the glass mirrors that lined the interior of the elevator. A pale face, sweat-streaked hair, and dark, hollow eyes that glimmered with neither light nor life.
Dying. He was dying. Emiya Kiritsugu was dying, but that wasn't anything new. He had been dying for the better part of five years now. Today was no exception.
Like usual, his failing body begged for a swift release. And like usual, Kiritsugu denied it even that small mercy. He couldn't. After all, there was still much left to do. So, the dying man did what he always did. He pushed aside the temptation of death and soldiered on. His anguished expression quickly reverted back to the familiar stone-faced indifference that he so often wore during his long tenure as a mercenary.
Today's happenings were a bit different from usual. He had an important meeting to attend. Truth be told, he would much prefer to never meet up with this person ever again. Unfortunately, Kiritsugu was out of options. This meeting was literally his last lifeline for a happier future— not for him, but for the few people left on this Earth that he truly cared about.
For their sake, failure was not an option.
The sound of classical music flitted through the air as the elevator slowly brought him closer to his destination. Kiritsugu couldn't help but think back on the life that he had lived. Specifically, he thought of the events that had led to his current predicament.
Emiya Kiritsugu was a man of many regrets, perhaps far too many to properly quantify.
For most of his life, he worked as a mercenary in order to fulfill his childhood dream of being an Ally of Justice. A mercenary playing hero was a bit of an oxymoron, but to him, there was really no better option. Suffice to say, he did not live a happy life. Death followed after him like a lovestruck reaper, while Kiritsugu himself chased after tragedy like a lover spurned.
He had taken life, sentenced men to death, and committed countless atrocities, all in the name of a simple philosophy: the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few.
It was a pragmatic view of heroism that sent his life tumbling down a dark and dreary path.
Out of all the regrets that Kiritsugu had accumulated, one stood out above them all as the single greatest regret that he harbored.
It was his participation in the Fourth Holy Grail War.
Originally concocted by three great families of Magi, the Holy Grail War was a two-hundred-year-old blood ritual involving seven masters (Magi) and seven powerful familiars known as Servants. In other words, it was a battle royale. To the Magi, the War functioned as a method to attain the root, the all-powerful source of magic. Kiritsugu couldn't have cared less. He coveted the grail for its wish-granting function.
He wanted to bring everlasting peace to the world. He was prepared to give up everything in order to accomplish said goal. Unfortunately, things didn't exactly work out as planned. The war brought nothing but pain and suffering, both to himself and to those around him. On the day the 4th Holy Grail War ended, so too did Kiritsugu's drive and ideals. How could it not? After all, the grail was corrupted from the start. Everything he had fought for was a farce. Even though he technically won the war, wishing upon the grail would have just resulted in the destruction of humanity.
In the end, only tragedy greeted his victory. His wife died in vain, he was barred from ever seeing his daughter ever again, and a sizeable chunk of the city was destroyed. Oh, the world almost ended too, but at least he was able to prevent that part.
Of course, Kiritsugu himself did not escape unscathed. The event had left him with a debilitating curse that was slowly eating away at his life. Suffice to say, being exposed to All the World's Evils was not a fun experience.
Truthfully, he should have died a long time ago.
The only reason why he had persisted for this long was because of the fact that he had expended all of the resources that he had ever accumulated in his 20+ year-long career as a magical mercenary. That and sheer grit and willpower. Unfortunately, it was not enough. For five years, he persisted, but five years was all the time that the world was willing to give him.
With each passing day, death drew ever nearer. Kiritsugu did not want to die, at least not without absolving a few of his regrets first.
So, in his waning years, the haggard man set out to do exactly that.
The first thing he did was commit an act of terrorism.
Kiritsugu had taken his experience with the Holy Grail to heart. To him, one thing was clear: he absolutely could not let another tragedy like the War happen ever again.
While his Servant Saber had managed to destroy the Lesser Grail during the closing moments of the war, he knew for a fact that the Greater Grail was still around. Unfortunately, he did not know where it was located, so dismantling it was out of the question. Even if he did know where it was, Kiritsugu lacked the necessary ability and/or resources to do such a thing. Since he could not destroy the Grail itself, then he would target everything else instead.
For that reason, he destroyed the network of Ley Lines that encompassed Fuyuki City.
He set off an explosive charge right within the heart of Ryoudou Temple. The explosive that he used was a special concoction that he had previously commissioned from one of the Clock Tower's infamous Sealing Designates. Prior to this, it had only ever been used once: to destroy the Clan Grounds of a particularly troublesome family of Magi called the Yggdmillennia. The end result was a patch of scorched land that was all but magically inert.
As for the Yggdmillenias, a few of their members had survived the bombing. Hunting them all down was low on his priorities. Kiritsugu's time was better put to use dealing with more pressing matters.
He blew up Ryoudou Temple not only because it was an important juncture within Fuyuki's network of Ley Lines, but also because it was one of four possible sites that the Grail could manifest at. For added measure, he also targeted the remaining three sites, as well as several lesser junctures throughout the city. In a single night, the Tohsaka estate, the church, and the park where the Fuyuki fire took place were all leveled beyond the point of recognition.
Kiritsugu used up his entire stock of commissioned explosives. In total, seven explosions rocked the poor city of Fuyuki. To the mundane world, the event was deemed one of the world's most catastrophic terrorist attacks. Billions in property damage, several thousand people left without homes and/or jobs, and ten people dead.
The number of deceased was laughably low, especially for a tragedy of this scale. Of course, that had been on purpose. Kiritsugu had made sure to minimize the number of deaths by placing deterrent-type bounded fields within the bomb sites prior to detonation. While he did his best, the bombings still resulted in lives lost. Their deaths were all on him.
Practically overnight, Fuyuki became magically-inert. No self-respecting magus worth their salt would ever step foot into a place like that. In his after-action report, Kiritsugu noted that the sole surviving member of the Tohsaka family was forced to move locations. The last he heard; she had apparently gone on to live with her cousin in Europe. As for the rest of the three families, there was no news of the Matous, and the Einzberns had yet to respond to Kiritsugu's obvious provocation.
The city itself saw a drastic decrease in population. Fuyuki was informally titled the most dangerous city in all of Japan. As a result, a large number of citizens fled the city. A few months after the bombing, the exodus gradually came to an end, but not before the city's population had dropped by more than a quarter. It was unnerving. The once lively city felt distinctly hollow. Not exactly a ghost town, but something close to it.
Still, even after destroying the city's Ley Lines, Kiritsugu was not satisfied.
He had this nagging itch in the back of his mind that there was something that he was overlooking. Yet, despite how much he thought about it, he could not figure out what. In the end, he needed to make preparations, insurance in case something bad does happen. For that, he turned to his son.
Emiya Shirou was probably the biggest reason why Kiritsugu was able to persist for this long. The ex-mercenary had adopted the boy immediately after the events of the War. Shirou was a survivor of the Fuyuki fire and someone who Kiritsugu had personally saved. The boy also had Avalon, the famed sheath and noble phantasm of King Arthur, implanted into his chest.
For the past few years, Shirou had displayed an earnest desire to learn Magecraft. At first, Kiritsugu was reluctant to teach him the art, but after some consideration, he eventually decided to go ahead with it.
Learning Magecraft was dangerous. The adage, "to be a Magus is to walk with death", is not without reason. It was a road paved with hardships and cruelties. At the same time, Magecraft was also one of the very few available means of defense that humans possessed against the many, many terrible things that lurked within the Moonlit world.
Kiritsugu did not really want to involve his son with this side of the world. Unfortunately, ignorance did not guarantee safety. Thousands of unsuspecting humans die each year from Dead Apostle attacks. Rather than pray that Shirou does not become a part of that statistic, the ex-mercenary would much prefer for his adopted son to be able to handle such situations instead.
Also, in the event that the Holy Grail does start acting up, the boy was to act as Kiritsugu's last and final fail-safe. It was a role that Kiritsugu truly did not want to burden his son with, but it was a necessary sacrifice. For the good of the world, for the good of humanity, Emiya Shirou must be trained.
Unfortunately, teaching Shirou was no easy task.
For someone who came from a non-magus lineage, Shirou possessed a surprisingly high number of magic circuits: 27 circuits of average quality. Those circuits would have gone to waste had he left the boy unsupervised.
For some reason, Shirou was under the misconception that in order to use Magecraft, he had to make magic circuits. In other words, he cannibalized his own nervous system in a vain attempt at creating magic circuits. Not only was the process extremely painful, akin to sticking a burning metal rod up his spinal column, it also neglected his real circuits. Over time, those neglected circuits would have atrophied.
Kiritsugu was quick to fix this misunderstanding, but that was only the start of his troubles.
Prior to teaching, the ex-mercenary had retrieved a number of books and manuals pertaining to Magecraft. These books were stuff that he had originally pilfered from dead Magi and kept stored away at various safe houses scattered throughout Europe. Since Kiritsugu wasn't really the best at teaching, he had hoped to use these books as a sort of supplement to Shirou's magic education. Unfortunately, none of them were of any use to his son.
The boy was absolutely abysmal at any magic pertaining to the five great elements. His talent in similarly branching fields of Magecraft was also just as bad. The only areas that Shirou showed genuine talent in were the ones considered by most to be the absolute basics of Magecraft. In other words, he was good at structural analysis, reinforcement, and projection.
This discovery led Kiritsugu to believe that there might be something unusual with the boy's origin and elemental affinity. Unfortunately, he did not have the necessary tools nor the know-how to verify this theory.
Instead of dwelling on things that he could not solve, Kiritsugu decided to foster the boy's strengths. He would turn Shirou into a specialist.
In all honesty, Shirou's talent with the fundamentals was actually quite good. His Structural Analysis was already leagues ahead of anything that Kiritsugu was capable of, while his Projections were practically indistinguishable from the real thing (they also lasted for an abnormally long amount of time). His usage of reinforcement wasn't quite as good, but it was quickly nearing a similar level.
Still, for all of the boy's progress, Kiritsugu was not satisfied. It wasn't enough. The current Shirou would not survive the bleak future that the ex-mercenary so often envisioned.
That's why he was here. To find a way to help his son, to give the boy an opportunity—
A loud ding abruptly broke Kiritsugu's train of thought. He looked up, just in time to see the elevator doors slide open, revealing a dimly lit hallway. The broken man with a failing body forcibly straightened his back and marched forward. His expression turned frigid, dead-eyes stared straight ahead with unnerving intensity. Now was not the time for weakness.
He reached the room at the end of the hallway and opened the door. The interior of the room was brightly lit, a far cry from what he originally expected. In the corner of the room was a small table. Sitting beside the table was an old man with slicked-back white hair and sharp, dangerous eyes. He had a cup of tea in his hands.
The old man glanced up and nodded his head. "Magus Killer." He said lightly, using the moniker that Kiritsugu was most known for within the Moonlit world.
Kiritsugu marched into the room. The door shut behind him, but he ignored it in favor of scrutinizing the old man.
"Wizard Marshall." He returned. For a split second, a brief summary of the old man flashed through the ex-mercenary's mind.
Kischur Zeltrech Schweinorg. One of the founders of the Clock Tower. Within the Mage's Association, he ranked as Wizard Marshall, a prestigious title given to only the strongest of Magi. A man who has achieved immortality through his own means. A Dead Apostle Ancestor. One of the strongest beings in all of existence. Wielder of Kaleidoscope, the Second True Magic.
"To schedule a meeting with me is no easy task." Zeltrech began. "Fortunately for you, I was interested in hearing what you have to say. Now, what is it that you want?"
"I want to cash in the favor that you owe me." Kiritsugu wasted no time and skipped straight to business.
A few decades ago, Kiritsugu went on a mission at the behest of the Wizard Marshall. He did not get paid for that mission. Instead, he was promised a favor. Of course, to those of the Moonlit World, a favor from Zeltrech was no small thing to own.
"A favor?" The old man tilted his head slightly to the side. "That's right, I do owe you a favor for completing that job in America, don't I?" The vampire hummed to himself in amusement, his finger gently thrumming the ceramic edge of his cup. After a while, Zeltrech nodded. "Very well. I ask again, what is it that you want? I can tell that you are a man of many issues, but know that I will only acquiesce to solving one of your problems."
Kiritsugu nodded his head. He figured that would be the case. It was the reason why he had held back on using the favor up until now.
Using the favor to save Illya would have been pointless. Even if he did get her away from that accursed family, so long as the Einzberns were still around, they could just as easily take her back. Asking Zeltrech to destroy the Einzberns was not an option either. The Wizard Marshall's friendship with the original head of the family, Justeaze Lizrich von Einzbern, was well known to most of the moonlit world.
He also refrained from asking Zeltrech to heal his particular illness. For one thing, he was uncertain if the vampire possessed the means to heal something on the level of a curse from All the World's Evils. More than that, Kiritsugu did not think he deserved to be healed. His wife was dead, his actions had led to the death of thousands of people, and he almost destroyed the world. He simply could not bring himself to make such a selfish request.
For those reasons and more, he was staking everything on his son.
Kiritsugu had confidence in Shirou. The boy was kind, determined, and strong of will. Even without his help, Shirou would probably go on to accomplish a lot in life. Still, it was not wrong for a parent to help their child.
That's what he wanted to use his favor for. A chance to help out. To make the good in Shirou great. An opportunity.
He explained all of this to the Wizard Marshall.
Silence filled the room. There was no sound, save for the quiet thrumming of ceramic. Eventually, Zeltrech nodded his head.
"So be it. It's a vague request, but I can make it work. As long as I don't go overboard with the 'opportunity', then it shouldn't cause too much trouble either…" The vampire explained, mostly to himself. "In the end, it will mostly depend on what the boy does with the opportunity. Now, that leaves only one thing…
"What should I give him?" Zeltrech asked out loud. Kiritsugu was experienced enough to know that the question was not directed at him.
"A mystic code? Perhaps something similar to Ruby or Sapphire? Maybe a Noble Phantasm will work better? One of those Class Cards? Or I could just go with the tried-and-true method and implant memories of a different timeline into the boy's head?"
Kiritsugu felt a bead of sweat trickle down the side of his forehead. Hearing the vampire's ramblings somewhat worried the ex-mercenary. Maybe coming to Zeltrech for help wasn't such a good idea, after all…
"What about I just chuck the boy into another world for a few years and see what happens?" Zeltrech suddenly suggested something that sounded completely insane. Even worse was the oddly satisfied expression that slowly wormed its way onto the Wizard Marshall's face. "Yes, that could indeed work. As for what world… it shouldn't be something too excessive. Perhaps… that one?"
He blankly stared off into space for a few seconds before nodding. "Yes, it fits the criteria. Not too strong, but not a complete push-over either. Now, to check the repercussions…"
Zeltrech's eyes abruptly glowed a myriad of colors. After a moment, he frowned.
"Strange," he slowly intoned, confusion marring his features. "A divergence in the timeline? A singularity? Is the opportunity truly so great to cause such a thing? No, it's not a singularity, but something more…"
Some time passed before Zeltrech broke free from his little trance and clicked his tongue. His eyes returned to their normal luster, but the frown on his lips remained.
"Uh… is everything fine?" Kiritsugu spoke up, not liking the look of irritation on the Wizard Marshall's face.
Zeltrech turned back towards the dying man. After a short pause, he suddenly smiled.
"Very well, Emiya Kiritsugu. I will repay the favor that I owe you and give the boy but one opportunity to change his predetermined fate. What he does with that opportunity will be for him to decide."
Kiritsugu bowed his head. Despite all the doubts that still plagued his heart, he couldn't help but feel a sense of relief upon hearing the Vampire's words.
"Thank you," he said, his voice dripping with palpable gratitude.
Without another word, the ex-mercenary turned back around and hobbled out of the room. After he left, Zeltrech let out an amused hum. He stared down into his teacup. The amber-colored liquid reflected back a face stuck in deep thought. The Wizard Marshall couldn't help but ponder over the new future.
It warranted much attention. After all, it was a future that he could no longer perceive.