Chapter Two

Stay Night

Kirei could at least say one thing for the Tohsakas: they were a resilient sort. And as for Rin, daughter of Tokiomi Tohsaka, she showed more resilience even than her father. There was a ruthlessness waiting to be awakened there that unfortunately her father appeared to have lacked somewhat in his love of etiquette and protocol. Tokiomi Tohsaka had been a mage's mage, but Rin was something else altogether.

It was a shame that in the end Kirei would see to it that her heart was harvested for the Grail, but on the other hand, such power promised that the Grail would be satisfied with such a Vessel. Well, maybe he could give it some reconsideration. There were a million things he could do to build a world for this child and then crash it down upon her, laughing maniacally as she wailed in agony.

Not since that night had he experienced that kind of joy. He was long overdue.

From the very beginning, Kirei's treatment of Rin as a student felt like one huge practical joke, though not a mere joke in and of itself. He took it very seriously. But his soul also supped and subsisted on the fact that this was all a preamble to the pain he would put her through. And with the Grail War coming as early as it was now, so much the better. He wouldn't have to wait nearly as long at the very least, and at the same time, she'd still be a very young girl, an upperclassman in high school, by the time the torment he had in store for her came.

Like a cat batting around string, he toyed too with the idea of whether he would tell her in the end that it was he who murdered her father. His mouth watered and he licked his lips at the thought.

Even more amusing was how frigid their relationship was, all while they tolerated each other. Of course, Rin had disliked Kirei since long before her father died, but this time, he had actually done her wrong. She just didn't know it. There were times though that he wondered if she could sense it. She was clever, after all, watchful, like a fox in the grass. Not quite a beast like him, more definable and nowhere near a shadow of pure wickedness as he was, but not to be underestimated nonetheless.

In truth, he enjoyed the way she spurned him openly, more so now that she was no longer taking lessons from him, having completed her studies as a mage insofar as anyone could teach her. Now she was on her own, in that grand and rich house, isolated and alone. Sure, he was her "guardian", he dropped in just to make sure at the very minimum that she was still alive. Apart from that though, what sharpened his palate for the gourmand of malevolence was saying things that he supposed a caring person would say to someone who was their ward, fully aware that he came off as fake and disingenuous, and that Rin clearly knew that.

And he did not care in the slightest.

Such a thing came to pass in the time shortly after the death of Kiritsugu Emiya, and he had called at the Tohsaka residence. With a proposition in mind.

"Why hello, Rin." Kirei grinned when she opened the door at the summons of the bell. "You look as though you've been keeping well."

"Spare me, Kirei," sighed Rin with her usual bluntness. She stepped aside to let him pass. "Shall we get this over with?"

They took tea in the richly furnished drawing room, and Rin, as usual, behaved as an excellent example of good Tohsaka breeding. Not even a pre-teen yet, and already so elegant and poised as she sat so primly on the sofa opposite Kirei, lifting a china cup to her lips. Kirei didn't bother to hide his smirk as he watched her, and, as he'd hoped, she didn't fail to notice it. When she did, she raised an annoyed eyebrow at him before taking another sip and then setting her tea down on the coffee table between them, the china clinking as cup met saucer.

"All right, Kirei. So what did you want to discuss?" Rin folded her arms over her chest, which Kirei observed was still very much flat and underdeveloped.

But he observed it in the way a disinterested feline would observe a bauble that did nothing to amuse it before haughtily turning away.

He picked up his own cup of tea. "Well, I've just been informed that all signs point to the next Holy Grail War taking place much sooner than anticipated. Instead of there being a sixty-year gap between the last one and the next one, it's a ten-year gap."

Rin knitted her brow, her expression softened by the old grief she still held onto for the death of her father, and subsequently, her mother.

The corner of Kirei's lips curled.

"So soon?" she murmured aloud.

"Indeed. But then, your father had just started to groom you, didn't he? To represent the Tohsaka family in the next conflict?"

"Yes, he was doing that, but…."

"But…?"

"I'm not sure…how I feel about…."

Kirei set down his tea without having taken a drink of it. "Going by the timeline, there's still five years yet until the next war begins. So you do have a generous amount of time to consider it. If I recall though, you were so enthusiastic about learning the magecraft of the Tohsakas. And your father was very proud of you, even if he was very reserved about it. He even told me once that when he'd watch you practice jewel magic, he could see the light of those gems reflected in your bright eyes."

Oh this was too much. Outside he was quite calm and sober, but inside he was so very giddy, spouting words like this while the child was still woefully unaware that her father's murderer was sitting right there in front of her. It was indeed the greatest pleasure he got out of speaking to Rin, especially when the subject of Tokiomi came up.

And when Rin looked up finally from where she'd been staring, unseeing, at a spot on the carpet, she reminded him of a wounded pup. It was wonderful.

"Yes, I…I think I will need some time to think about it. It…. It's not that I want to let my father down, I just…I still need some more time to accept that my normal life outside of this house is coming to an end."

Kirei watched her as she glanced over her shoulder at the large windows letting in the afternoon sun, wondering briefly if she was thinking about said outside life, that place where she went to school with other girls her age, made friends, interacted with people who knew nothing of her secret life as a mage.

Then she turned back to him, straightening, hands now in her lap, assuming a serious expression reminiscent of her father's.

"Don't misunderstand, I have no intention of staying out of the fight, at least, not exactly," she explained, "but I'd rather keep to myself while I prepare and consider whether I actually give an answer."

"That sounds reasonable enough." Then Kirei added, "Just make sure you don't dilly-dally until the last minute."

"I appreciate your understanding, Kirei." Rin stood.

"Not at all." Kirei stood as well. "Well then, unless there's anything else that you needed to discuss with me?"

"Not really, no."

"Very well then. Although, you know how to reach me if you do think of something."

He could feel her watching him with her usual simmering disdain from the doorway as he stepped out through the front gate, the metal hinges creaking.

Even though he knew it was an empty offer, telling her she could talk to him any time, he did actually wish she reached out to him more, if only so he could toy with her more. After that afternoon though, he would not see her again for another handful of years, when the Holy Grail War finally got under way. At which point, he forced another visit upon her, and she appeared to him again when she answered the door, this time grown much taller, more curvaceous, now folding her arms underneath a pair of sizeable breasts.

Which again, Kirei observed with indifference. His mind was more on Gilgamesh lounging with a bottle of wine in his office at the Fuyuki Church, having just been sated with a fresh batch of children's lives. That and Lancer, whom he had keeping watch over the church grounds at a distance while invisible to the mundane eye in Spirit Form.

That said, he did enjoy how she could still greet him with annoyance, but now with much more mature composure. She even picked up on the way he'd clearly grown his hair out at the back since last they'd seen each other in person.

"It's a couple of weeks before the Holy Grail War begins," he went on as she once again served them tea in the sitting room. "I have yet to receive a proper answer from you about whether or not you plan on participating in the War." He passed a small stack of documents across the polished wood of the coffee table.

Rin glanced at it over her tea and then set her cup on its saucer and set it aside. She reached out with one hand and flipped open the front flap of the folder and skimmed the document on the very top before closing it dismissively.

"Information on the other Masters that have been listed so far?" Rin tutted. "You think I'd really work like that?"

"Don't be so rude, Rin," Kirei admonished, in that way that he enjoyed admonishing her. "I just thought I would try to give you a head start. That and give you an idea of what you're up against. In case that might factor into your decision making."

Rin gave him a rather unladylike low growl, reminding him of those days he spent teaching her magecraft in the same way that Tokiomi had taught him, picking up with her where Tokiomi had left off. And despite her having always made it quite clear to him that she disliked him immensely, in any way that she possibly could without betraying the elegance for which the Tohsaka name stood, he had always been twistedly fond of those moments she'd glare up at him, catching her breath beneath his severe gaze, before getting up and trying again without complaint.

Honestly, it was his luck that he'd hardly had to give her much direction at all. She had always been a natural at this. It came with the blood that ran through her veins.

With a sigh he took back the stack of documents, laying them beside him on the sofa and picking up his own tea. "Very well, you want the identities of the other Masters to remain a mystery to you, fair and square, it's nothing to me. Though I should point out that your father took full advantage of gathering what information he could, working closely with my own father as the former overseer of the last War. So I don't see—"

Rin held up a finger. "That may be the case, but I've never quite agreed with that particular tactic of his ever since you mentioned it to me. In the same way that I've always hated the rule about having to kill any outsiders who happen to witness the War taking place."

"Hm." Kirei was a little surprised, not that he'd admit that. Though he was more than aware of the fact that this War was going to be much different than the previous, and considering again what fate he had planned for the young girl sitting across from him, it was becoming increasingly clear to him that it was going to be more difficult than he'd thought to get her where he wanted her, since she wouldn't take the bait he'd just dangled in front of her to draw her closer to him.

That being the case, it did more to whet his appetite than anything else.

Quite as much as he enjoyed the way she had locked her pain away over the years, sealed it up tight, all those sobs of anguish, all those cries that she and her father would never get to learn more of that jewel magic he'd promised to teach her once the War had ended (which in some ways made Kirei wonder briefly if Tokiomi had in fact been lying to his daughter, an idea which very much intrigued him).

So stoic, so self-assured.

And at the same time, so hopelessly naïve.

It was almost too good of a combination.

"I admire your forthrightness, Rin," he said, even if it was both sincere and insincere at the same time (but then, he'd always been a bit of a contradiction to himself, he supposed). Collecting the stack of documents, he regained his feet. "I'll show myself out, then?"

Rin actually smiled and stood as well. "What do you take me for, Kirei? Uncouth?" And with a flick of her long dark hair she escorted her guest to the front door.

"Did you have a good talk with the Tohsaka girl?" Gilgamesh was selecting another bottle of wine from the cabinet when Kirei returned to his office at the Fuyuki Church.

"As good as can be expected." Kirei smirked as he tossed the stack of documents on his desk.

Gilgamesh straightened and considered said documents. "Didn't take the bait, did she?"

"Not in the least. Not even affirmative or otherwise that she's participating, but no matter. I'll have her one way or another."

"You know, all told, I do hope she doesn't turn out to be as much a fool as her father was."

"That would make the game even more interesting, as if it weren't enough already with how obstinate she's being." Kirei stroked his chin as he took a seat in his armchair and crossed his legs. "Yes, the more I think about it, her father was far too easy to kill. If Rin presents more of a challenge for me—and considering her age—all the better indeed."

"Indeed." Gilgamesh flopped down on the sofa sat perpendicular to the armchair with leonine grace and uncorked the bottle of wine he'd picked out—today's was a Malbec, the finest Argentina had to offer. "In fact, that Bazett made it ridiculously easy for you too. There are just so many people in your life who don't know you like I do." He grinned sidelong at Kirei as he tipped a measure of wine into each of the two empty glasses on the coffee table.

"Mm. Shame, that."

"Liar."

"Oh, but would you have me any other way?"

"True. You'd be far too dull otherwise."

Kirei raised his glass in a toast, but at the same time admired the blood-dark shade of red of the liquid. "To Rin Tohsaka," he said. "May she do her father proud in the final fight of her life."

Gilgamesh lifted his glass as well and they both drank, as though sealing their Master-Servant pact anew, appropriately enough.

That night in his dreams, Kirei revisited that rainy day, handing that Azoth dagger to little Rin, barely able to contain his joy at the way she finally cracked and started crying when he told her that it was her father's.

But then everything shifted and then…there he was.

That man.

Had the two of them been lovers, one could say that he was "the one who got away" to Kirei.

Kiritsugu Emiya.

Pointing the barrel of his gun between Kirei's eyes.

Kirei licked his lips as Emiya pulled the trigger, shot him with the same bullet that had failed to kill him because it had been the Grail's will that he live…live to fight for his dream of a world on fire.

Unlike back then, there was no sound, and no bullet certainly.

Instead, Emiya lowered his firearm and simply vanished like smoke, crumbling away like ash.

Kirei experienced a moment of incomprehension before throwing his head back and laughing the same as he had that fiery, hellish night, that revelry in the flames of destruction.

And meanwhile the Grail, spilling its deathly contents, stood above it all, the only cool patch of blue in all that red coming from what little of the moonlit sky shone through.

It was coming. Soon. So close he could almost taste it.

Just before he opened his eyes though, someone else intruded upon his jubilation. Someone he didn't know, a man all in red aiming a bow and arrow at him with the same cold steel in his eyes that Kiritsugu Emiya had had.

It sent such a thrill through Kirei that he didn't even flinch when the man fired and struck him clean through the chest.

It didn't matter anyway, since he woke up the moment it struck him.

Then he closed his eyes and let out a beleaguered sigh. "What foolishness," he muttered and rolled over.

Though the War was close at hand, Gilgamesh was in need of one last supply of young life to continue maintaining his form as he had been for the last ten years.

Kirei somewhat skulked out in the streets the following night after he'd dismissed his altar boy, though with his usual predatory ease. Either way though, this felt like he was feeding a secret beast.

Though in some respects, he supposed that he was.

But he'd been feeling generous tonight and told Gilgamesh he'd pick out the children himself tonight, his treat.

"I'll cook," he'd said. "But you better clean."

Thankfully, he used his priestliness to its full potential. After all, there was nothing odd about a priest walking amongst homeless orphans on the back alley streets of Fuyuki. So many orphans born from the Fuyuki Fire, from misery, from death.

The idea was to pat a few of them on the head, treat them as little lost lambs, being sure they were isolated before taking them unwittingly to the slaughter.

Ah, what luck. There was a small herd of them huddled in one street around some burning trash. They lifted their small, hungry faces at his approach. Their eyes were so empty, their flames blowing in the fierce wind, threatening to go out at any moment. Really, he was doing them a mercy.

"What's this?" He stood over them, spreading out his arms. "Are we hungry, my little kittens?"

Then he held out his hands to them, and two of them each accepted one. Blind, lured by the promise of food that he'd implied. And the rest of the troop of urchins followed suit. He didn't even need to use something like that charmed bracelet that that psychopath Master of Caster had used in the last War to kidnap all those kids from places like Rin's school.

Kirei could scarcely contain his grin as he thought of it, thought of what Rin would do if she knew he was doing this. In some ways he almost wished she would, and then he'd tell her the truth about her father and she'd practically throw herself on a platter for him trying to slice his throat, not even realizing that that was what was happening.

Inside the church sanctuary, he opened the door that led below for them and ushered those tiny lives down into the dark. He relished that first spike of fear he felt through the wood when he shut them in, sliding the bolt over and locking it in place. Though he was calm as usual on the outside, inside his heart was dancing as one by one the little ones all cried out from having their lives sucked out by the godly beautiful Gilgamesh.

When it went quiet, he unlocked the door and descended to the place of horror below.

"What a mess, as usual," he observed with his usual disdain. He pushed aside the wide-eyed face of one child with his foot. Well, really it was only the eyes that were still intact.

"I was enjoying myself," was Gilgamesh's only defense as he sat back in one of the pews of the little basement chapel, sucking blood off each of his fingers the same way one might do after digging into meat drowned in sauce—but somehow again with his usual divine regality, which was "I promise, I'll clean it up like I promised."

"Well, I suppose I can't fault you for enjoying yourself." Kirei sank into the pew beside him and rested his elbows on his knees, balancing his chin on his folded hands. "I will miss this," he confessed.

"Our quiet little dinners," Gilgamesh teased, now cleaning his teeth with a toothpick the way he normally did. "Come now, you make it sound like we're breaking up or something. You're even acting like the sad little housewife who realizes that her life is a sham."

Kirei raised an eyebrow at him and then closed his eyes, exhaling rather heavily. "I've been waiting so long," he murmured. "It's been almost too much. This darkness inside me, always hungry, always unsatisfied, always yearning to recapture the joy I felt that fateful night, when I finally realized who I was." He opened his eyes. "Thanks in part to you."

Gilgamesh waved his free hand, feigning modesty. "Oh stop. You'll give me a swelled head."

Kirei chuckled, but it was mirthless. In truth, he was on the edge right now. Biding his time had become excruciating. Listening to the death-cries of children and secretly mocking Rin Tohsaka's pain was no longer enough.

Patience, patience.

After all, he planned on calling on Rin one last time, given the prologue to the Fifth Holy Grail War was reaching zero hour.

"I had a thought, by the way, Kirei," Gilgamesh said, interrupting Kirei's thoughts.

"I see. And that is?"

"This Rin Tohsaka…she had a sister, did she not?"

"Technically speaking, though she was adopted by the Matous shortly before the Fourth Grail War as a means to strengthen the Matous' weakened magic bloodline. Why?"

"Something about her…." Gilgamesh got a curious look on his face that Kirei couldn't classify. "I've seen her about the last few times I did my own hunting. I sensed…something about her."

"Hmph." Kirei sat back and crossed his legs, stretching out one arm on top of the pew. "What is it you sensed about her?"

"A power." Gilgamesh bit down on one thumbnail, and Kirei realized that this was the King of Heroes' way of legitimately worrying a problem.

But then he smiled that smile made sinister by his bloodred eyes.

"I think I'll go find her again before everything begins. There's something I'd like to ask her."

"Making preparations, are we?" Kirei asked when this time Rin made him let himself in. Apparently today she'd decided she could be as uncouth as she wished. At least he'd made certain to call after school had let out at Homurahara Academy.

He found the heiress of the Tohsaka family riffling through a box of gems at her coffee table today. She hastily shut the box upon his entrance.

"I suppose you could say that," Rin relented. She snapped the box shut and pushed it away, then sat up, crossing her legs. She had that very short skirt of hers on, and it didn't pass Kirei's notice the way the fabric rode just a wee bit high on her thigh, though again, he noticed it with indifference.

Predictably though it didn't escape her notice and she very tactfully adjusted herself so it didn't seem too much like she was trying to yank the thing down to preserve her modesty.

Funny that she should think she needed to go to such lengths for him.

She still colored in her face nonetheless, which had its own brand of amusement.

"What do you want?" she demanded.

"Rude as ever, little Rin." Kirei took the seat across from her without invitation. "How long has it been since I took charge of you?"

"I don't know if I'd call it 'taking charge', since you were hardly ever around." Rin pretended to be more interested in how polished her fingernails were. "Get on with it then. You're here to try and get an answer from me again about the War, aren't you?"

"Smart as ever too, little Rin," Kirei praised, and he was actually sincere about it. "Yes. It's rather down to the wire, don't you think?"

Rin avoided looking at him, smoothing at the fabric of her skirt now out of discomfiture. "It is, yes."

"You should know," Kirei told her, "that only the Archer and Saber classes remain open." For a moment his thoughts touched on that fop of a man who had come to him at the Fuyuki church the other day, whining about his Servant Caster. Well, a simple order to Lancer had taken care of that headache.

He was glad to see though that there was a flicker of anxiety in Rin's eyes at hearing that there only two open slots left.

Then she swallowed and nodded. "Understood." Then she steeled herself. "I'll take care of it."

"Very good. I look forward to hearing from you on the matter." Kirei rose to his feet.

But when he turned his back, Rin called out to him again.

"Kirei."

"Yes, Rin?"

There was a pause, and then Rin, very slyly but casually, commented, "Pretty ghastly, all these kids still disappearing every now and then. It's almost just like that time ten years ago when that psycho was going around kidnapping kids. Don't you think?"

Kirei glanced over his shoulder at her, putting on his best mask of solemnity, as he remembered everything from that gloomy night that the child Rin had taken on Caster's Master all by herself. He wondered in fact if that was the moment he realized that he actually had a tiny measure of respect for the girl.

"Yes, almost," he finally said, betraying nothing. "Sad business that."

"Not to mention these grisly murders in Miyama Town the media's attributing to gas leaks—though you and I both know what's really going on, overseer."

"I can't help it if those people were in the wrong place at the wrong time."

Rin narrowed her eyes at him, and then shook her head. "You can go now, Kirei," she told him, waving a dismissive hand in that haughty way of hers.

"How ungracious the hostess is today." Kirei smirked at her, which earned him a killing glare.

Outside the gates to the Tohsaka mansion however, Kirei finally cracked, just a little, and cough-sniggered into his hand.

Mapo tofu.

If there was a better word for the perfect mixture between pain and pleasure for one's taste buds, Kirei had no clue what that could be. For it was for its feverish spiciness that he delighted in consuming the dish so often.

And there he went again, breaking out into a sweat, forced to unzip his collar a little to give himself breathing room. There was almost an S&M quality to it.

But he hadn't been able to help himself indulging in his favorite food tonight, given the weight of importance that tonight held.

Earlier that day he'd received a curt call from Rin, asking him to put her down officially as a Master in the Fifth Holy Grail War—with Archer for her Servant.

Like father, like daughter, once again.

Of course he'd made another attempt to lure her to the Fuyuki Church, but it had been more of a lark, a whim, than anything else. He hadn't really expected her to go for it, he just really enjoyed screwing with that girl.

His plate empty, he took a deep breath and pushed back his hair, his bangs damp with sweat from the heat of the mapo tofu. It really was a glorious thing, that something like this could bring him joy.

It almost made him just a little more human.

Master.

Kirei stopped just outside the Fuyuki Church and looked up to see Lancer had materialized from Spirit Form on the sacred building's roof. He stared down at his Master with nothing short of loathing, his lance planted beside him.

The corner of Kirei's mouth crooked. You disapprove of what Gilgamesh and I have done these past few years. With the children.

That goes without saying, Master. I disapprove of everything you do. I even disapprove of you breathing. But there's nothing I can do to stop you. Lancer's eyes narrowed. Much as I dream every day of skewering you on my lance for your sins.

Still bitter and grieving for Bazett, was he? Kirei had neglected to inform him of the mysterious disappearance of her body, yet another secret he kept close to chest and enjoyed the taste of with it being just out of Lancer's reach without him even knowing it.

Or perhaps it was those people he'd had to kill the other day because they'd seen Lancer engaged in a skirmish with another Servant. He was as much a fan as Rin was of the "kill witnesses" rule—as in not a fan at all.

For now though, Kirei simply chuckled in the face of the searing hatred coming at him in waves from his Servant, well aware that there was indeed nothing Lancer could do to harm him. Not unless he wanted to die for his pains.

You disgust me, Lancer growled (something he was always certain to inform him of on a daily basis), and took his leave by evanescing back into Spirit Form and returning to his standing order keeping guard over the grounds of the church.

Shaking his head, as though this were all just some playful ribbing between them and there hadn't been anything like Lancer seriously threatening his life, Kirei turned toward the distant mountains, where he thought he could make out the towers of Einzbern Castle, dormant these last ten years, now awakening again with tiny golden lights within.

Oh, if he had the opportunity to face another one of those silver-haired dolls on top of everything else…oh yes, he was going to enjoy this War very, very much.

Still…there was one thing that saddened him about this go around.

No Emiya for him to torment.

Then again, the Grail was always full of surprises.

With the War having commenced, it was Kirei's solemn duty by night to keep vigil within the sanctuary of the church.

Like with the previous War, this War started out on a rather uncertain step. Even though Rin had summoned her Servant already, she hadn't made a move. Well, he'd gathered from when he sent out Lancer to do a little pre-battle scouting that she'd been going around town all day with Archer at her side—giving her Servant the lay of the land, he supposed—nothing more of consequence occurred apart from the bloody deaths in Miyama Town…and there was the dark aura of power enveloping Ryuudou Temple.

Kirei licked his lips again with the anticipation of a wolf licking its chops. He'd asked the altar boy to leave the candles lit when he'd dismissed them that night, and while keeping his vigil as well as waiting for Lancer to report back to him after he'd sent him off to Rin's school to give little Rin a run for her money (because why not?), he plucked a volume of holy scripture and flicked through it, his mind returning to days as a child learning all of this by rote, reciting it, following in his father's footsteps because he didn't know what else to do.

He felt the old familiar itch between his knuckles to summon his beloved Black Keys. They hadn't tasted blood or flesh since Bazett, and they were quite as ravenous as he was.

And then, he caught a whiff of something.

A trace of magic.

No, more than that.

A familiar presence…one he had never expected to feel again with Kiritsugu Emiya dead and the last war having ended as it had.

The hackles on the back of his neck stood on end as the heavy church doors creaked open.

"Kirei?" called the voice of Rin Tohsaka.

But it wasn't Rin's presence actually that piqued his interest at present.

Kirei grinned and snapped the book in his hand shut.

"You never accepted my invitations to come by, Rin, and now you come here with an odd guest?"

When he turned, that was when he saw them. Saw him. The young boy that Rin had perplexingly brought with her tonight, redhaired and skinny in his black and white zip-up jacket and jeans.

And with a hopeless look about his youthful face.

There was only one conclusion then to draw from this.

"I take it then that he is the Seventh?" He nodded to the boy.

Rin folded her arms and averted her eyes when the boy tried to catch them with his. Having failed that, he faced Kirei and stepped forward.

Yes, hopeless. But the kind of hopeless that undoubtedly doesn't know when to quit going by the well-tucked-away glint of determination in his golden eyes.

God it was so familiar. If he could just put his finger on it.

"My name is Kirei Kotomine," he told the boy. "Perhaps you might tell me your name, young man? Or shall I simply call you 'Seventh Master'?"

"Shirou Emiya," the boy answered without hesitation, hands curling into fists at his side.

The utterance sent shivers up Kirei's spine and he nearly doubled over. Nearly.

That was the familiarity he felt. Even though there was no genetic resemblance that he could make out, he knew, this boy was linked irrevocably with the one once called the Mage Killer.

And for a flickering, that ghostly specter of that man flickered beside the boy who called himself Shirou. It was almost too good to be true, if he were being honest.

"Emiya," he breathed. And then his grin returned. Wider. Feeling that exhilaration that comes with realizing you've come to a moment you didn't know you were waiting for.

Oh yes, the Grail certainly was always full of surprises.

END