Kiritsugu Emiya still exists.
Iri's neck snaps under his fingers.
Why does he still exist?
His wife's bones sound like breaking ice as they shatter.
Irisviel's curse—
The Grail's curse—
Angra Mainyu's curse—
(The love of his life.) Crunch.
Is not a death curse.
Crunch.
It is the curse of life.
Crunch.
(Years later, his son will roll his head and pop his neck,
and Kiritsugu will retreat to his room and silently sob.
But that is in the future.)
He should be dead should be dead should be dead should be dead DESERVES TO BE DEAD DESERVES TO BE DEAD DESERVES TO DIE AND SUFFER AS HE DOES—
Illya looks up at him with trust in her eyes.
He screams.
He pulls the trigger.
The screaming doesn't stop.
He pulls the trigger.
Sobbing and wailing and clawing.
She smiles at him and he pulls the trigger.
She is not dead but he is dead to her because he knows what must come next and
WHY AM I STILL ALIVE
Time keeps skipping. Jittering. Back and forth and back and forth.
He stands in the Grail's black mud, and his gun is in his hand.
He shoots his darling daughter in the head.
He puts an Origin Round in Kirei Kotomine's heart.
Crunch.
He knows.
He knows what the Grail is now.
He knows what the thing he has fought so hard for is.
He knows what dwells within it.
You are Angra Mainyu.
It must be destroyed.
You are all the evil of the world.
He forgets to breathe, and only remembers when his lungs start to burn. In a daze, he wonders whether he should simply stop breathing forever, but his body will not let him, and he has a duty.
You are the one who will save the world.
A pain like a lance smashes through his skull, but Lancer is long dead, and there is nothing physically wrong with his brain. Several of his bones are broken, but none in his skull. He thinks.
(This is the first time the Grail's curse will make him
feel as though his head is tearing itself to pieces.
It will not be the last. But that is the future.)
He doubles over. Retches. Black mud pours from his lips. He wishes it had been blood. With a ragged breath, he squeezes his eyes shut tight, gathering himself. "Assassin," he says into the darkness behind his eyelids, and his voice is surprisingly steady.
"Contractor." The voice is not physically present to disturb the air, but it still sets his ears ringing and his teeth jittering.
"Is it over?" he asks, then straightens. The pain is agony, but he can bear it for now. The Grail itself is... upstairs. The theater. One step, then another. Each one sends another dagger into his eye.
"Archer is dead. I am all that remains." There is no pride in his voice. No inflection to indicate that Assassin felt anything for what had transpired. "The manifestation begins. What is thine intent?"
"That thing—" His voice breaks. His eyes fill. He wipes the tears away, because he cannot afford to be distracted before his work is done. Assassin allows him his moment of dislocation. When he continues, he is more composed. "The Grail must be destroyed."
There is a long moment of silence. Will Assassin protest? Will he rebel? He has shown no such signs of disloyalty before, but if Kiritsugu takes away his purpose—
"What did it show thee?"
The headache redoubles as he climbs the stairs. He leans against the wall, putting more weight on the railing than it had probably been designed to take. "It showed me enough." The anger and pain in his voice is like broken glass and blood in his throat. Each word is a spike of pain, and not just because he has screamed his throat raw. "Come to me."
As he staggers down the hallways, the hulking Assassin materializes beside him, each step like thunder in the silent building. Kiritsugu stumbles, and a black gauntlet catches him by the shoulder before he can pitch down onto the grimy, muddy floor. Neither speak until they reach the theater doors.
Within, the Grail boils, black mud pouring from the chalice. The cup runneth over. Kiritsugu stares at it with a wave of revulsion and regret and misplaced love. It's not Iri. Not anymore. "Can you destroy it?"
A whisper that he does not comprehend slithers in his ear.
Assassin gazes upon it as well, and he is as unreadable as ever. What thoughts do those blue flames hide? He has not wondered this before. Assassin has been naught but a tool. Little more than an automaton. Kiritsugu isn't sure what has changed. "I believe I will be able to, but I do not know what will happen when I do. Its death throes may not be peaceful. It has begun, and it will be resistant to end."
Kiritsugu nods, head thudding in time with the movement. "We'll take it somewhere else, then." His mind starts running through lists of probabilities, places where the damage could be minimized. Kill the few to save the many. His vision wavers, and he fights the tears. People will die regardless of the action he takes. The fuse is lit. Now it is only a question of degree.
"Not far. Time is short." He does not elaborate. Maybe he doesn't know how long they have either.
If time is short and they cannot leave Fuyuki, if they cannot take it somewhere no one is… There is only one option. "The park," Kiritsugu says heavily. "Where you fought Archer. It's a big place. If there is a backlash…" If there is a backlash, people will die. Kill one to save a thousand. It was how he had lived his life. It was how he structured his philosophy and his morality. How he justified every horrific choice.
Now he can see it for what it was.
An excuse.
A cowardly excuse for a monster.
He vomits again, but at least this time it isn't mud.
"I do not know of a better place nearby," Assassin assents when he has finished heaving. "My existence is created by the grace of the Holy Grail. I do not know what will happen if I were to enter its corruption."
Kiritsugu grimaces. He is so tired. He has felt weariness before, but this… It would have been unimaginable to him before. His work is not done, and so he cannot rest.
He can die when the Grail is no more. Not before.
He has promises to keep.
Miles to go before he sleeps.
(He will never sleep peacefully again.
Not until his final rest.
He will welcome its embrace.)
"I'll carry it," he rasps. "It's already done its worst to me. I'm already cursed."
Time skips.
The gentle waves lap at his feet.
What do you want to be, Kerry?
He stands before the golden cup, and he does not remember approaching it. He does not remember if Assassin responded to him. He knows what he must do.
You won't have time to gather your things.
"I'm so sorry, Iri," he whispers, and his fingers close around its base.
You are my real family.
Immediately, his hand is engulfed in mud, and it crawls and burns and seeps into his skin. It is freezing, and it burns the flesh from his bones, but of course it doesn't. He is not immune, but he has been inoculated. He can tolerate this for a little while, at least. He lifts the chalice, and it must weigh thirty pounds or more. He can barely do it. Another ragged breath, and his lips move. "Assassin. If I fall before I get to the center of the park, wherever I am, I need you to destroy the Grail. Nothing else matters."
"I understand."
The next part will either kill him or buy him time, but it is worth the risk. What power he has left, he concentrates into his fingertips. His hands buzz and tingle with magical energy straining to be released. This magic is difficult when he works it upon himself; it is nearly impossible when he tries to use it externally. "Time alter," he gasps. "Triple stagnate."
(He does not know it now, but his circuits burn
out, one by one, as he suppresses the curse.
By the time he is finished, he will only have
magical energy enough for one final spell.)
The threads of magical energy wind around the cup like ropes, binding and expanding until its surface is entirely covered by the power. The principle is not dissimilar to a Reality Marble, but this is much more localized. Much less of an imposition on reality. The mud flowing from the chalice boils in slow motion, seeming to return to normal speed once it was no longer in contact with the gold.
His whole body burns. His whole body aches. He wants to lie down and sleep. He wants to lie down and die. But his work is not done.
His body is not his. His consciousness tries to fade, but he does not allow it.
He takes the first step.
The journey is interminable. He no longer possesses the ability to measure time or distance, and each step is the new worst moment of his life. He is shattered and rebuilt and shattered again.
(To Sever and Bind.
It is not a healing gift.
It will never be.)
Every footfall is the last. How could he possibly lift his foot again? But of course, he does. Muscles screaming, body crying out for rest, he walks. Assassin is by his side. He will not let Assassin touch the Grail; not until the moment he must smite it with his sword, but Assassin does not let him fall. He does not express sympathy or pity. Kiritsugu knows almost nothing of his partner in this War, but he suspects the Servant understands something fundamental about his dedication to this duty.
They have not quite reached the dead center of the park when Kiritsugu's ankle crumples, and he falls to his knees. He still grips the Grail in a white-knuckled grip, the black mud smear following behind him like a slug's slime trail of liquid death. His breath is choppy and painful, and from head to toe, his nerves burn. (He begins to suspect what is happening to him, now.) He looks up at Assassin, and the burning blue eyes gaze down at him dispassionately.
(There are tears streaming down Kiritsugu's face.
His hands are badly burned and will never be right again.
He doesn't notice this.)
"Set the Grail down here," Assassin commands. Assassin has never commanded him to do anything, but in this moment, it is exactly what Kiritsugu needs to hear. "Get as far away from this place as thee can manage. I will wait as long as I am able to strike the final blow."
Kiritsugu looks down at the monstrous thing clutched in his shaking hands. "If it goes off, I don't know if I can get away in time." Not that he deserves to. "I don't know what it'll—"
"This will not be thine end," Assassin says, and Kiritsugu had not known the black knight could sound so gentle. "The Evening Bell does not toll for thee this night."
(When Kiritsugu fades away, five years later,
when he bids a moonlit goodbye to the only
family he has left that he has not betrayed,
he will hear the bell, and he will smile.)
Kiritsugu meets Assassin's gaze one final time. The blue flame seems to burn eternal in that last moment. He feels no fear. On an instinctual level, Kiritsugu understands something, and it will take him months to wrap his mind around what it is.
(There is still work that is left unfinished.
Something only he can do.
Assassin knows that he will find his reason to live.
Or maybe he just believes.)
What last words will suffice? What final notes could fit this meaningless symphony of blood and death? Everything he can imagine rings hollow. Kiritsugu nods unsteadily. "You're a good man, Hassan. Thank you." His voice cracks, but from what, even he isn't entirely sure.
Assassin nods back, unflinching in the face of true Evil. All the evils of the world, gathered in one place, in the hands of one broken, unworthy man. "I am neither, Contractor, but we may yet set this right. Meet thy destiny with eyes forward and head held high."
Kiritsugu opens his mouth, but there is nothing to say. Finally, with an agonized groan, he lets the time magic fade. The boiling mud redoubles, pouring faster onto the ground, sloshing over his blackened skin.
He lets the Grail fall.
Kiritsugu Emiya does not think he can walk another step, but in the end, he runs.
(As far as he can, but not far enough.)
In the end, he survives the torrent of flame and death.
(Not immune, but inoculated.)
In the end, he finds the boy.
(The Origin Rounds were made to kill.)
Sever and bind.
(Made from the dust of his own rib.)
He is (they are) dying.
(They form the backbone of Kiritsugu
Emiya's final spell.)
He saves the child.
(He severs a piece of his own spirit.)
He pulls the boy back from the brink.
(Does his best to fill in the holes.
Patches stitched over what is missing.)
But his magic cannot truly heal.
(Every Origin Round he has remaining,
arranged in a circle, become the catalyst.
His last circuits burn out. A magus no longer.)
All he can do is cauterize.