Chapter Three

Fangs of the Lamb

When Ilya awoke, everything came back to her slowly. And the moment she remembered everything, her body seized up in a pain blooming within her heart, just for a breath…and then she went limp again, constructing a wall of numbness around her. Actually, it was rather easy for her to shut herself off from her own feelings.

So this was the way Nele and Mieke found her when they came in to check on her: lying awake on her back in her bed, staring, her red eyes no doubt reflecting the emptiness she went back to floating in from within herself.

"Miss Ilyasviel?" Nele attempted a conversation.

Ilya turned her head slowly towards the sound of her voice, even though it seemed to come from so far away. But she wanted it that way. She was beginning to think actually that if she stopped moving as much as possible, for long enough, maybe she would simply disappear, or dissolve right into the mattress beneath her, and never have to feel again.

After all, what was the point? She had no one in her life who mattered anymore: her mother was dead, and her father had left her here to waste away, after he'd promised he'd come back for her. There was so much she still couldn't understand or sort through. She couldn't decide which hurt more, the fact that she would never see Kiritsugu again, or the fact that he was the very reason she would never see him again…that he had chosen to leave her behind. That and though it was his fault, at the same time she grieved and longed for his return, longed for him to scoop her up in his arms again the way he always used to do for her, if only to prove all of these terrible things wrong.

She just…wanted to be able to love him as she always had.

What could she do? What could she feel? She didn't know even that.

"Miss Ilyasviel…I…I'm so sorry," Nele said, fidgeting with the skirt of her maid's dress.

Something faint pinched inside Ilya at seeing Nele and Mieke look so apologetic, and she mustered a quiet: "It's okay. I just…I think…I don't feel very well…still…. Could I just…sleep for a bit…?"

Nele and Mieke exchanged apprehensive glances, and Ilya guessed that they were told they had to drag Ilya out of here for some reason, no matter how she felt.

What? More needles jabbed in her skin, more cutting her open with a scalpel?

Ilya sighed.

Of course, she'd rather just lay here. But she found she didn't really care if she got dragged somewhere else, she supposed, so long as she didn't have to think. And if it was painful, well, at this point, no physical agony could compare to that inside her heart. And even so, she was already working to numb that heart to any further injury, wounded as it was.

She blinked slowly and heaved another sigh. "Fine. Take me wherever. I get it."

Even so, when Grandfather Acht began his cutting into her flesh with the scalpel once more, her terror emerged unbidden, and she wailed for her father as she had done last time, and would have kicked and bucked had she not been strapped down like last time as well.

"DADDY! DADDY, PLEASE COME SAVE ME! DADDY, PLEASE…!"

After that she dissolved into tearful sobs, experiencing again that feeling of being rent in two from within, but not just between two realities, but between opposing feelings too…love and hate…grief and anger….

The darkness of sleep that washed over her again as a result of succumbing to so much pain was her only relief, that and waking up again in her own bed in her own room so she could metaphorically lick her wounds. Once more she floated along in her own sense of emptiness, and wondered vaguely even if perhaps she could maybe just die from so much despair consuming her. Was that possible?

At least then, I could truly be with Mama again….

Ilya pulled Klara to her and hugged her tight, burying her tearful face in her soft wooliness. "Oh Klara…." She sniffed and pulled back, looking over the stuffed toy lamb with great affection. "Daddy gave you to me as a present. He did because he loved Ilya…right? Right…?"

But the toy of course could give no answer. All she could do was be something Ilya could squeeze again to her broken heart, and soak her tears. It hurt so much, and again she felt that sense of her shattered heart coming back together, but growing back twisted and gnarled from how painfully the pieces fit against each other in their struggle to regain form.

"Daddy…Daddy…how…how could you make Ilya cry and suffer like this…?" Her whisper in the gloom of her room came out as a rasp, almost wicked. She choked again on her sorrow, trembling even as something burned within that gnarling heart. "I…I'll never…I'll never forgive you now…for…leaving me…Kiritsugu…I…I hate you…."

Even as it was all she had left to cling to, this hurt too. She had never had a reason to hate anything or anyone before, and it was certainly a feeling that did nothing but cause her more pain…yet somehow it was strangely satisfying. And it followed her into her dark dreams as she fell back into sleep, alone in the dark of her room, alone with the germinating seed of hatred within her. A part of her still howled from within, begging that seed not to grow anymore, to stop taking over her, but the rest of her surrendered to it, as doing so, despite the agony it brought her, somehow made things easier to bear than anything else.

However, if her father were to appear now, she could probably still find it in herself to forgive him after all. Even with the poison of hate coursing through her and growing stronger with every second that she brooded on it, love was still there, crying out for salvation. For her to speak of hate now, really and truly, was still nothing more than with a child's words, a child's concept of hate, which could be as fleeting and flaring as a shooting star, nothing more than a transitory passion, and just as it could grow given enough time, it could also be swayed into annihilation, given sufficient reason to be so.

This was what drew her to go on slipping into her parents' bedroom, to comfort herself with wrapping herself up in the blankets of the bed her parents had shared. How many nights had she rushed in here after having a scary dream about Lord Justeaze, crying for her mother and father to tell her that everything was all right? How many times had she trusted them when they'd told her so, been comforted by those words without fail?

Not only that, but she found herself sneaking into her father's old office now and then too, poking around with a strange kind of pleasure, as she'd never been allowed in here by herself before—the door had always been locked whenever her father hadn't been inside working here. Of course, things like his "computer" and "printer" were gone, but that "telephone" was still hooked up. From what she understood, people could pick up the handle and type in a sequence of numbers on the pad of buttons and it would allow them to speak to a specific person on the other end.

Maybe…maybe there was a number sequence that would reach Kiritsugu?

So she spent several hours on one of these explorations searching though notebooks left behind that might give her a number she could dial.

She did find a few, but all of them turned out useless, as when Ilya—having finally gotten the hang of dialing—tried them all, all she got in return was a machine message that told her that the number was no longer in service, only to click into silence.

Eventually she got curious about the rows of books on the shelves, and she would flick through them, left with nothing else to poke through. She didn't quite understand most of them, even though she could read very well. On a technical level, she could understand how the rows of words strung together, but fundamentally, her comprehension was cloudy. What she got out of it though was that there was a lot written in these books about guns and people dying. Many times, Ilya came away from these books with tears in her eyes, though again, without understanding why. Though she suspected it had to do with all the death she was reading about.

Her mother had mentioned to her once that her father was always trying to be brave and heroic for the two of them. Was he trying to be the same for these people in these books? Had he…wanted to save them somehow…?

A world…where no one cries….

She came out sniffling from one of these afternoons spent in that office, only to be greeted by Nele. She jumped at the sight of her, afraid she might've been breaking some kind of rule she didn't know about.

But Nele smiled that kind smile of hers that reminded Ilya a bit more of her mother. "It's all right, Miss Ilyasviel. I won't tell your father when he gets back."

Ilya tapped her index fingers against each other, fidgeting. "You…so you think…he'll come back…even though…Grandfather said…?"

"Yes, I think so," Nele admitted quietly.

"Why?"

"Because…there's just something…that tells me he will. I suppose…a human would call it…instinct."

"Instinct?"

"Yes."

Outside the window of Kiritsugu's office, Nele spotted two birds passing by in the midst of a courtship flight, and she crossed the threshold into the room through the door Ilya still had open, and looked out at the shining, snowy landscape. Ilya joined her, almost skipping, as though a small part of her body still wanted to be the happy girl she'd been before her parents had left.

"Something curious I always noticed—though I suspect he never realized I did—was that your father kept…what he was feeling…in reserve…hiding, except…when he was around you and Madame Irisviel. I don't understand why he would, why he would feel he would need to hide emotions if he feels them, but then…I'm not human. Still, I wasn't the only one who noticed." Nele gave Ilya her soft smile again. "Apart from Mieke and myself, there was another one of our kind who attended to your family, particularly in the instance of your birth."

"My birth?"

Yes, that's right. I'm different not just from humans, but from homunculi too. I'm built like Mama…but I was born like a human…like Kiritsugu….

"Who was she?" Ilya went on to ask, curiosity sparked.

"Her name was Aloisia," Nele told her, her voice laced with a rather human fondness. "She was a very sweet one of our number, and it was clear she was devoted to your mother, and your father, and you. Unfortunately, she was…killed…when you were still a baby. And even if he didn't show it, I know…Kiritsugu…was upset by it…that he couldn't bear that, any more than he could bear that the one who killed Aloisia wanted to hurt you too. And…though no one in the family speaks of this…he made certain that that threat against you was removed, for both your and Aloisia's sakes."

Ilya swallowed. Not since Kiritsugu had left had she seen much if any of the others of the Einzbern family, like Auntie Greta and her many cousins. She was given to understand that she'd once had a Cousin Malte who'd assisted Grandfather with his alchemy, but he'd died in an accident caused by an experiment he'd been working on in the chamber.

Or so she'd been told by Grandfather Acht.

In any case, to Ilya, people like Auntie Greta weren't her family. Her world contained only Irisviel and Kiritsugu, and apart from having no other children to play with, that had always been enough for Ilya.

Nele gave a small, quiet laugh and patted Ilya on the head. "So have faith, sweet child. Have faith in how dear you are to Master Kiritsugu."

And then she left, and Ilya watched her go, feeling lighter than she had in what felt like ages.

Only for that lightness to be crushed by the weight of Elke appearing at the door, and giving her a cold, hard, frightening look of disapproval so sharp that it scared Ilya into scampering out of the room before she could lay a hand of discipline upon her. Her heart thumped like that of a terrified rabbit as she sprinted back to her own room within her family's private rooms, as she wondered how much of that conversation Elke had heard…and how much Nele would pay for it. Something told her, by the way Elke had looked at her, that what Nele had told her was something that she shouldn't have, beyond the fact that really and truly, Ilya should not have been poking around in Kiritsugu's office.


Ilya began to lose interest in her toys and books as the white days turned gray in their endless onward march. Between sleeping off her grandfather slicing her open for hours on end and her increasing despairing uncertainty over Kiritsugu, her heart's constant pendulum swing between love and hate, all these beautiful things that reminded her of her father and the affection he had showed her caused her nothing but more aches inside of her, more tears buried in her pillow. The only thing she could muster herself to do was curl up at her window and hug Klara to her, a small part of her still wanting to believe, to not give up.

Apart from that, Nele or Mieke would come along now and then and each in their own way try to coax her into taking a walk outside in the wintry forest with them. Sometimes Ilya was not to be pulled away from her vigil, other times she gave in. A few times when she did, she tried teaching the walnut game to Mieke and Nele respectively, but neither, vexingly enough, seemed to really grasp it, and anyway, it wasn't the same as when it had been Kiritsugu playing with her.

Forlornly, Ilya would look up at the winter trees, that canopy she had once observed icily shimmer with such delight as she'd ride upon her father's shoulders or cradled in his arms, while she would prattle on about stories and games she had made up on her own, the time Kiritsugu had listened to her so attentively…stories and games she could dream up because he and her mother had given her the gift of imagination…of those fairy tales her mother read to her…those stories her father would tell her.

One that would stick in her mind in particular was the one he had told her to comfort her when her mother had suffered some ill alchemical effects, and Acht had frightened her with his anger over how she'd been crying out to see her mother in such pain. The story had been about a queen—whose name Kiritsugu had said was the same as hers, Queen Ilyasviel—and this queen reigned over "a world where no one cried". A world that was happy thanks to Queen Ilyasviel, and she protected that happiness with the help of her trusty steed, "Kerry" (which of course was supposed to be her father, she'd figured out on a spritely giggle, for all the times he'd played the horse for her). They had had many adventures that came to pass, but the one Ilya remembered best was the first one she'd heard, that day her mother got sick: the day Queen Iyasviel and Kerry defeated the Wizard of Sorrow.

If I could have that kind of power, Ilya would muse now as she recalled these thoughts and feelings, outside in the snow, that would indeed be wonderful. I could even bring Daddy back, I'll bet.

And when she thought of that, she thought a bit more about the Grail too, about how things had ended inconclusively in the war her parents had fought in, and piecing together those dreams she would have of Lord Justeaze with those cruel imaginings of her mother's voice in her ear, she knew the Einzberns were right in basing their preparations on the prediction that a Fifth War was inevitable. Even after so much, that "miracle" of the Holy Grail had again evaded all who had tried to seize it.

With all of this weighing on her mind, Ilya started to feel, day by day, that despite her small size, despite how little she'd grown physically in the current span of her life, that she was actually rather older than her eight years. Eight-going-on-nine, actually. That in and of itself was almost just as hard to believe, but there it was.

No, she didn't want to give up her life for the sake of the Grail, though, she did want to be as brave as her mother had been doing the same thing for her sake. And, if it gave her the chance, perhaps…to win back her father…maybe….

That didn't make her any less melancholy about it though, about all of this uncertainty, about all of this pain pressed upon her. And as all of this progression of such dark feelings taking over her halted at Nele waking her one afternoon from a troubled sleep and offering to take her out for a walk in the snow, Ilya, still attached to her father and the happy memories of playing outside with him, felt well enough once again to accept rather than reject.

"Where is Elke and Mieke?" Ilya asked as the two of them walked beside each other, wrapped up in their winter coats in the wintry forest, white and calm within the dome of Acht's Bounded Field.

Nele actually gave Ilya a playful smile. "Elke was looking for you, to take you to Grandfather, but Mieke volunteered to serve as a distraction so Elke couldn't get to you before I did."

Ilya stared up at her. "But why? Won't Grandfather be angry you kept me from him?" she asked, even as she was relieved that today at least, she might not have to suffer getting cut open by Acht's scalpel.

"Maybe, but…." Nele averted her eyes. "I can't help it. I know your mother and father never wanted this for you."

Ilya's eyes widened, and that fading love still crying out within her heart grasped onto this shard of hopeful light shed its way. "Daddy…."

Just then, the wind picked up, icy and sharp. Something must have suddenly agitated Grandfather Acht. Even so, Ilya's small ears picked up at a voice on the wind, a voice that she could have sworn with everything happy she had left inside her was calling her name…calling her name in the voice of her father….

"ILYA! ILYA! ILYA…!"

Ilya's heart began to beat faster and faster with sudden, hopeful anticipation. "Daddy…." Without another thought, she broke into a run, and behind her, she heard Nele follow.

Yet she didn't call out for Ilya to stop, as she might've expected her to.

Instead, she cried: "Go, Ilya! Go!"

Spurned further on by this, Ilya quickened her pace, despite the smallness of her legs and the depth of the snow, despite the rising wind and white out of the thickening snowfall, to the point where she could scarcely see two feet in front of her.

"Daddy! Daddy!"

But then the howls of the wind cut off all sound, surrounding Ilya in nothing but white noise and white snow. Realizing she'd get utterly lost if she kept going on, Ilya stopped, catching her breath and hugging herself in the biting cold despite the warmth of her coat and hat.

Her eyes filled again, tears coming both from her grief rising up again, and from the cutting wind. Then she took a deep breath and cried out: "DAAAAAAADDY! DAAAAAAAADDY!"

In the echoing silence filled only by the rising tempest of ice, there came what sounded like a shriek, but then, it might've just been the wind.

And then, for a moment, her hope returned to her in a breathless glow, as a shape emerged from the snow—

Only for it to be Elke hefting a great silver halberd that she was actually well-trained in wielding, from what Ilya was given to understand.

And the blade of the halberd dripped crimson with blood, while in her free hand she carried—

The severed head of….

"Nele…" Ilya squeaked, covering her mouth with both her hands as she sucked in a gasp of horror.

Elke lifted Nele's head up so that their faces were on a level. She flicked her crimson eyes between her and Ilya, and then said, "Thank goodness, Miss Ilyasviel, I found you before Nele could bring her betrayal of you to fruition."

"W-What…?"

"Ah, little lamb. There's still so much you don't understand. Don't you see? Nele has woven the same trickery around you as your father did, being kind and loving to you, then giving you reason to believe that your father was out here in this snow, only to lead you as an innocent to slaughter."

"You mean she was…?"

"Indeed. She had every intention of your getting lost in this storm and freezing to death, bringing all of our plans, all of our careful preparations to naught but ruin." Elke gave a low hiss of disapproval and tossed Nele's wide-eyed, slack-jawed head to the ground unceremoniously. And then she held out her hand to Ilya. "Come. Let us deliver Mieke her punishment together. After all, she played her part in this scheme, trying to trick me as much as you that your wicked father had actually appeared to return to you."

Ilya gaped at her. "Punishment?"

"We will dispose of her, as I have done with Nele. They have outrun their use to the Einzbern and what prayers we hope to have answered at last in the miracle of the Holy Grail. Come."

Still shocked, Ilya watched Elke press onward through the snow with her halberd. She looked beyond from where Elke had come just once, and when nothing but silence answered, she turned away, accepting that she had been lost in her own delusions, her own weakness.

No more.

It really was time to wake up.

He…really isn't…coming back…all this time…his love really was…a lie…a lie just to help himself when he had needed her…and now that he didn't….

And then Ilya thought of horrible words she didn't even realize she knew, except that they echoed from some distant memory…her father's voice perhaps…muttering them under his breath without thinking in a fit of frustration.

Damn. Bastard.

After all this time, every joy he had given her, had just been a means to destroy her in the end. To use her and her mother, and then, having done with them, abandoned them, left them to die…for a different family, a different child, this new child he had apparently adopted…to replace her….

Damn him.

Ilya clenched her tiny fists, her gnarled heart growing all the more twisted with this news of Nele's and Mieke's betrayal coupled with Kiritsugu's. Her little jaw started to work, and before she knew it she was grinding her tiny teeth, her breath hissing between them.

When Elke threw open the double front doors, Mieke was just rushing down the stairs, and reaching the bottom, she spotted the blood on Elke's halberd blade, and her normally subtle face became bent and contorted with a frightening blood-rage. Rushing to a suit of armor, she tore off the sword clenched in the armor's fist, and came at Elke like a wild cat.

Elke hefted her halberd, and when she swung, though Mieke managed to dodge the blow with an acrobatic leap, it wasn't high enough that the blade still didn't slice though her ankles, cutting off her feet. Mieke gave a savage scream and dropped like a puppet cut from its strings, hitting the ground and wailing as bones broke.

And then Elke, instead of finishing her, stepped aside, pulling a dagger from a pocket of her dress and holding it out to Ilya.

Ilya stared at it, and then looked up at Elke, mouth dry.

"Go on, Ilya. Take her life. Pass judgement on her as the Einzbern Princess you were born to be."

Without waiting for an answer, Elke pushed the dagger into Ilya's tiny, limp hands. Ilya clutched onto the handle of the dagger in those hands, and she began to tremble, as the full weight of the violence that had unfolded before her pressed in upon her.

Mieke, writhing in pain on the ground, turned to Ilya with wild eyes such as Ilya had never seen on her. "Miss…Ilyasviel…" she gasped. "Please…you have to…your father…."

At the mention of Kiritsugu, the gnarling of Ilya's heart curled inward, much like she were inflicting herself with pain as a reaction to it.

It was all she could do for a reaction. Now…pain was all she could feel to hear of her father. Because all of this…all of this was his fault.

Kiritsugu….

Mieke stopped in midsentence as she pled with Ilya to show her mercy, to listen to her. And Ilya knew it was because an expression had come over her that was terrifying to behold. She could only croak then in fear as Ilya, with cold conviction, her growing hatred sharpened and reforged into a blade of ice, came around behind her and slashed the blade of the dagger across the fellow homunculus' throat. And despite her inexperience with such matters, her aim was true, slicing Mieke's throat clean open, spilling her blood as she fell limp with a choked cry.

As the polished floor bloomed with the growing pool of Mieke's blood, Ilya watched with a detached calm, using the same means of numbing herself as she had been of late, to shut herself off from her pain and despair over what she could no longer deny was the truth of her father's having abandoned her.

With her own two little hands, she had taken a life. Yet it left her feeling nothing but empty. There was a kind of cold satisfaction, the kind of satisfaction that came simply from being able to check off the completion of a task. Nothing more. Her heart might as well have gnarled into nothing more than a lifeless rock sitting inside her small chest. In that respect, she could function from moment to moment as nothing more than a machine, which perhaps made sense, given that, in the end, all along she had been nothing more than a tool.

The only thing about it that disturbed her was how easily it came to her, like she'd been born to it. Or something.

But then, thinking about it that way, maybe it made sense. For though her father had turned out all this time to have been a cold, cruel, unfeeling man, who would soon as kill as look at someone if it achieved his own selfish ends, he was still, unfortunately, her father, tied to her by blood…and it seemed…he had passed on that capacity for cruelty to his daughter.

So, in spite of the innocence and playful curiosity and bravery she had received from her mother, at the same time, she could turn all of that off, turn off all of her kindness in her heart, and slaughter as many as she needed to…to achieve her own goals. And do so without an ounce of pity.

The Grail…it's all I really have left…otherwise, I'm on my own. But I'll be fine. I know that now for certain.

She lifted her eyes up to Elke at last, and offered the knife back to her, even as its blade still dripped with Mieke's blood.

Elke took it without comment and cleaned the blood off with a fistful of her skirt. Then she turned her cold red eyes on Ilya, the faintest light of approval flickering in them.

"Remember this, Miss Ilyasviel, for it will be one of the most important things you will ever be told, barring what you must learn as your role as the Einzbern Princess: Any human like your father who is kind to you only wishes to betray you." And then she bent and took Ilya by the chin with uncharacteristic gentleness. "Even those of our kind, like Nele and Mieke, employ the same tricks when corrupted by humans like your father. You are, after all, only a tool. An important and precious tool, but still, only a tool. To your father, you and your mother were only means to an end, and when his plans failed, he had no further use for you. So, in the Grail War to come...make him pay for his betrayal."

"Make him…pay…" Ilya echoed, her voice a strange rasp hissing from her throat. Then slowly, she nodded, a foreign eagerness inside of her, an eagerness to dedicate herself fully to the task she was born to that she might draw blood again.

Kiritsugu's blood.

She had asked him once why she had been born. He had told her it had been because he and her mother loved each other. But no, that, in the end, had been untrue.

This was the reason she'd been born. No more than that.

Her life held no meaning other than to die. Even so, she had a new reason to live in her own way. Though she would have to die, at the very least, she would seize this chance to make Kiritsugu remember what he had done to her, and drag him to Death with her.

Even if…even if he shrieked and begged for his life. She would show him no mercy.

He had cheated her again, like all those times during their walnut games when she'd caught him at it. And like those times, she would see to it that he was punished.

That was the only way she could go on another step towards her own dark and terrible end.

"Is it done, Elke?" sounded the low voice of Grandfather Acht across the foyer.

Ilya and Elke looked up, and Elke nodded in affirmation.

"It is done. The traitorous Mieke and Nele have been executed." Elke's eyes flicked in Ilya's direction, but Ilya only had eyes for her grandfather as he descended the grand staircase, while huddled members of the Einzbern clan remained at the top, watching with both apprehension and curiosity, Auntie Greta among them. But Ilya of course ignored them too.

At the bottom stair, Acht surveyed Ilya with his frigid, imperious eyes, and for what seemed like a painfully long while, until he finally nodded in austere approval.

"Very good. Then come along…Ilyasviel."

He didn't have to elaborate. It was time once more to descend into the Alchemy Chamber so he could work on her.

"Please, allow me to wash her hands of the blood first, Grandfather Acht," Elke requested, to which Acht agreed.

Ilya found she was fine either way. Her feelings had plateaued into a gray and empty form, and she was willing to endure anything, so long as it took one step closer to her own, new-sprung ambition to take revenge for her pain on her father.

Still, an hour later, as Acht cut into her again and injected her with all sorts of agonizing elixirs, there was nothing she could do to hold back her screams and shrieks. At the same time though, she felt her screams and shrieks take on a new kind of life, as though they were fueled as much by anger as they were by pain, something that managed to root her in her own reality, and make her feel some semblance of power, glaring up at the ceiling as she was with a cold fire burning in her eyes and in her heart.

Howling like a beast…baying for blood.