Kariya ran like a wild beast, his feet clinking on asphalt as he sped through the residential areas of Miyama. He passed rows of silent, light-less houses, seeing them as blurs. He must have been running more than fifty kilometers per hour.

Thankfully, there were no cars or people moving around at this hour. It wasn't too late, nearing eleven, but there were no drunken businessmen stumbling back from work or night owls driving to excitement. The government suggested curfew as well as the Church's maintenance worked together to sweep the streets clean. The emptiness had a sense of foreboding to it, but Kariya wasn't afraid.

The road in front of him suddenly started angling upwards, as it had been built atop a hill. Kariya's skin tingled. He could sense the dense concentrations of magical energy around this area, like an animal picking up on a scent. If Tokiomi was here, he would surely have commented on how barbaric, yet incredible, Kariya's method of tracing magical flow was. Unlike Magi who thought, analyzed, and understood the flow of the supernatural around them, Kariya felt it like he would feel the wind brushing by his skin or smell a peculiar odor.

Kariya was no longer a human, or even a Magus, that made fancy chants and compiled centuries of research all to be a guest in the house of mystery. He lived and breathed mystery; he was one with the world that Tokiomi had spent decades trying to understand. He was better than Tokiomi in every aspect, and that thought brought a smiling sneer to his face.

But Kariya had no time to marvel over his new powers. He scaled the sloping road, his sword bared in front of him. The Matou mansion was right on top of that hill, and Zouken would already know he was here.

The Matou mansion was isolated in its own little kingdom of road and concrete. The Matou family had bought most of the area around the mansion, preventing anyone from building beside it, with the end result being that the mansion held a gloomy feeling to it.

The truth inside that mansion was far more disturbing than simply "gloomy".

Kariya stopped in front of the mansion, challenging its grotesque secrets. No lights were on, but the gates were open.

Zouken was inviting him.

Kariya sprinted past the gate through the courtyard, feeling the stony path under his feet turn to soft grass. He tugged on the front door, a pillar of thick wood, and it did not give. It had been bolted shut.

A trivial obstacle. Was Zouken mocking him?

With his sword point, Kariya outlined a rectangle in space in front of him, just large enough for him to fit through. Then he made his plans a reality, slashing once horizontally, then twice vertically downwards. The blade's dark steel, now coated in a fluttering layer of inky energy, did not cut through the wood, but passed through it, meeting zero resistance.

The cuts were so seamless that the door seemingly stayed intact. Kariya gave it a solid kick, and the rectangular outline he'd carved fell backwards, thudding with a heavy crash onto carpeted flooring.

Kariya wasted no time. He sped through the gap, into the depths of the mansion. He hated this place, hated how it felt, how it always had a stench of desperation lingering in its every nook and cranny. But because of that hate, he was familiar with it. He knew exactly where to go.

The mansion was large, but it was like a cheap one-bed room in comparison to his speed. Kariya weaved through corners and hallways, his footsteps so quick that they sounded a machine gun stream of dull thuds as his hardened feet hit carpet and wood.

The entire place was dark, and any ordinary person would have lost their way in the labyrinthine, night blanketed innards of the mansion. But Kariya was different. He had the power to be see in the night, to be above anyone else who had challenged Zouken. He had the power to beat this house and all its horrors. And he would use that power to end everything tonight.

Kariya stopped in front of a creaky door so aged that he couldn't tell whether its black came from the wood's natural shade or the rot. He didn't bother checking if it was locked. He slammed the door with the flat of his sword, his monstrous strength reducing the elderly door into a shower of crumbling black splinters.

Kariya saw a hallway in front of him. It sloped downwards, and it extended so long that it looked like a pathway down to hell. Underneath the ground level of the house, this hallway was even darker than the rest of the mansion, granting it a sense of finality, like it was the walkway to a final boss in a video game. He laughed inwardly; Zouken was no final boss, he was just an insect waiting to be crushed.

Kariya didn't run through the hallway, he walked, his steps shuffling and tense, like a thief sneaking past security. He was confident in Watcher's promises, but even then alarm for this hallway was engraved into his skin with the stylus of countless nights of pain. Soon enough, he would be at the basement, where pests like the worms and Zouken festered.

A feeling of questioning nagged at him. It was odd for Zouken to not have appeared by this point, whether to mock him or attack him. Kariya shook his head, casting away his doubts. Zouken hadn't known about Watcher, so he wouldn't know the exact details of Kariya's abilities.

Perhaps that was why the old monster stayed hidden. It felt good to be the one in charge, the one with the initiative and secrets, for once. Kariya reached the end of the hallway, and looked back. He was so far deep that he could barely make out the other end of the hallway. There was no going back at this point.

Kariya inspected the stone door in front of him. It didn't look like a door, more like a giant slab of blackened rock with alien symbols scrawled all over it. He placed a palm on it, and closed his eyes, focusing his attention on his touch.

The door was warm and slippery, like it had been doused in lukewarm water. Tingles tickled his palm: the telltale signs of magical energy. Kariya hadn't ever tried opening this door before; Zouken had always been the one to do it with magical means.

Kariya wasn't under Zouken's yoke anymore. He was breaking in, not being led in like a sacrifice to an altar. With an one-handed thrust, he poked the middle of the stone with his sword, testing it. The sword slid in like a diamond saw through wood. The black coating around the blade clashed with the magical defenses and seals implanted in the stone, buzzing out a screech and loosing a hail of black sparks from the point of entry.

Kariya bared a fanged tooth with the beginnings of a victorious grin. He slid the sword upwards, cutting through the stone like he was slicing bread. Zouken's defenses were nothing compared to the Noble Phantasm grade energies swirling around his blade. When the blade reached the top of the stone, he pushed it straight down, parting the stone in two.

The stone was large enough that Kariya just needed one half to topple over for him to get in the basement. Taking the sword from the stone and resting it in his right hand, he slapped his left hand on its side of the stone, and pushed. The half leaned back slowly, attesting to its girth and weight, but it nonetheless toppled, smashing apart what sounded like wood.

Kariya reached into the darkness with eager, splayed fingers, like he wanted to snatch up a prize. Then, before he could even process it, his arm had pulled back, but too late. He hid behind the other half of the stone, watching as his severed left arm twisted in the air before landing on the floor, its clawed fingers digging into the stone like a stake.

His instincts relied on vibrations within the air, much like a spider's sixth sense. He wasn't sure how an enemy could overpower his instinct, but now he knew that hiding behind an airtight barrier was one way.

Blood from his left side, where his arm had been severed at the shoulder, spurted out in a thinning stream of blue. His face had the same shocked expression that anyone would have after seeing blue blood pouring out their body. The blue stained his black pants, and instead of making them a shade darker, the blue, almost cyan, overpowered the black completely, looking like he'd spilled acrylic paint.

Feeling the sudden wetness of his blood snapped Kariya to attention. He backpedaled, his sword waving in front him as his eyes looked out for danger.

Sharp whipping sounds cracked through the narrow hallway, echoing in its enclosed space. Kariya saw the stone block he had been hiding behind diced into a dozen pieces.

Kariya stopped when he was ten meters away, and watched.

A man staggered into view, his face a haggard mess of bulging nerves and frayed blonde hair. Blue eyes, the same shade as Kariya's blood, bore into him with a wide, crazed stare. His tattered clothes fluttered with his erratic movements, like rags of blue under a breeze.

"Lancer's...Master?" said Kariya, his sword grip tightening.

"Give me. The. Grail." said Kayneth. The words were quiet, almost subdued. Not the tone Kariya had expected from a man with desperation stamped on his face.

Kariya took a few steps back, trying to give himself distance to think. Lancer's Master was supposed to be dead. He shook his head. Assassin was supposed to be dead, and he'd almost been killed by it. He himself was supposed to be dead. Death had lost a lot of meaning to him.

All he saw in front of him was an obstacle. Something to tear down and destroy, because behind Kayneth was the reason for Kariya to keep living.

"Scalp," said Kayneth.

A tendril of reflective mud surged from behind the Magus, barreling towards Kariya in a whipping motion.

The thing was fast, almost a blur.

Kariya felt it coming.

He dropped to the floor, feeling cold seep into his cheeks as the tendril, thinned so that it was like a blade, zipped above him, colliding with with the hallway's wall and leaving a several meter deep gash.

Kariya looked to see a large blob, almost as large as Kayneth, floating behind the Mage. It was a muddy color with a glossy sheen, like a levitating sphere of amber glass.

That was where the attacks came from.

"Scalp."

Kariya's instincts worked at full capacity here. His body moved before his mind did, twisting to the side as a tendril axed down, cleaving out a trough in the stone. He stood and ran towards Kayneth like a madman before the tendril could retract, his sword bared to strike.

Kayneth pointed a shaking finger, gloved in shredded white, at Kariya.

"Secis."

A spike burst out from the blob like a bullet, shooting towards Kariya's head. He didn't want to lose momentum, so he kept pressing forward, throwing his left arm in front of him to take the blow.

Which is when Kariya noticed he still had no left arm. His regeneration wasn't working. He had grown so used to pain that, in the thick of battle, he didn't even notice that he was still hurting from his lack of an arm.

It was too late to dodge.

Kariya felt something hot, almost burning, swell up in his neck. Looking down, he saw a thin cone of mud, around as thick as two or three fingers, lodged into his throat. He followed the spike with his eyes, seeing it lead all the way to the muddy blob in one thin stream. His neck felt warm all around, so he could tell the spike had punched through the back of his neck.

The warmth spread from his throat to the rest of his body, and in a way, it was comforting. Perhaps this was the final spurt of warmth that hypothermiacs felt before chilling to death. He couldn't die here.

Kariya knew he couldn't breathe, so he didn't try to. If he couldn't regenerate from this, he was dead. The moment the spike plucked itself from his neck, the moment its warmth left his body, his lifeblood would drain out of him like a water balloon poked with a needle.

The spike started retracting. Kariya panicked. It was a miracle that he could even think right now, that he wasn't already dead, but his body was a miracle in of itself. He had been given so many miracles; he couldn't waste them now.

Kariya walked forward with trembling steps, trying to keep the spike stuck in his throat like a plug in a drain. The spike started moving back faster, and he sprinted, moving down the stream of mud.

Kariya didn't think about dying now. When death was so inevitable, there was no point in thinking about it. All he had in his mind was that he had nothing to lose at this point. If he could save Sakura and kill Zouken, even with his death, he would be happy.

So Kariya raised his sword with his one remaining arm. Just a few meters now. He saw that Kayneth didn't move back, just kept looking at him with that thousand-yard stare. It reminded him of his own look when he had been blinded from the worms.

Kariya hated that stare. It was Zouken's work. He had to crush it, kill it. He surged forward, like he was being spooled in through the mercury thread in his throat.

"Scalp."

Kariya forgot that the tendril from before had already drawn back. He didn't have the clarity of mind to remember. He had the rather good excuse in that he was dying by the second.

Luckily, his body was still alive, and at this point, his body was like a separate creature from his mind. His right arm moved on its own, parrying the whip of muddied mercury. The tendril was heavy, and if he had been any ordinary human, his right arm would have been ripped off from the sheer amount of force the tendril's weight had generated.

Kariya held his ground, his sole arm budging just an inch as he felt the power of the blow course through his body like G-forces on a fighter pilot. He shook his arm, pulling his sword away from the mercury, which slunk back to the blob that controlled it.

That moment of stopping was fatal.

The mercury-mud thread slicked out of his throat, and liquid blue spurted in a jet-stream from the gaping hole in his neck. He was close enough that his blood reached Kayneth, but the blob expanded in an instant, forming a thin film around the deranged Magus, blocking even Kariya's blood from passing.

Kariya fell to his knees, looking at the ground, watching a pool of blue spread from the bloody trickle dripping from his neck. He felt dizzy. The pool in front of him warped and fluttered like a heat wave, and he started seeing double, then triple.

Kariya couldn't think. All he could do was focus on his sight, because as long as he could see, he knew he was alive. None of his other senses were working. His body was numb all over, like it was dunked in a box of ice. The only sounds he heard were distorted beyond recognition.

Now his sight was failing, black creeping into the edges of his vision. He could make out a few peripheral blurs, and from those he could tell that the blob was undulating, forming another attack.

If Kariya could have thought clearly, he would have cursed Zouken.

Kariya saw everything blur into a mix of distorted colors, and he thought he was dead.

Kariya blinked. He could see a bit better now, and from that he could tell he was lying on his back, looking up at the face of Kotomine Kirei.

Something flowed into him, something warm and full of life, spreading through his body and thawing his senses. Kariya didn't have the strength to sit up, but he could crane his neck forward a bit. With that, he saw Kirei's hand resting on his chest, shining with an azure aura as it performed a healing spell.

His wounds weren't healing, but his mind was. He could think now, and his first thought was that he needed to live. He needed to live and save Sakura.

Live, he told his body. Live.

A burst of energy, shocking like electricity, jolted his body, and he sat up, panting as he made up for the oxygen he lost while holding his breath.

Kariya felt his neck, where the mercury had pierced him, and felt something like a scab. It was hard but flexible, almost like a shell or perhaps an exoskeleton. Sensation returned to his body, and the numbness faded away, letting him feel his legs and arms.

Arms?

Kariya looked at his left side, and his arm was there again. Something like it. The entirety of his left arm was now like his claws, carapaced in spiny, metallic black and segmented at the joints, like a spider's leg.

Monstrous Strength didn't regenerate, it replaced, circumventing whatever it was that halted his healing.

"Matou Kariya," said Kirei.

Kariya looked up at him. He was standing over him, watching him with those cold and dead eyes.

"Why are you here, priest?" Kariya rubbed his throat. His voice was raspy with an unnatural undertone to it, like the calls of crickets at night.

Kirei smiled. It wasn't compassionate. It was a smile of self-satisfaction, one completely selfish. The priest lent a gentle hand to Kariya's shoulder.

"As the Overseer, I must keep track of Masters who have lost their rights to fight," said Kirei. He glanced at Kariya's Command Seals. "They would need the Church's protection, though it seems that the Grail has determined you can still fight."

Kariya stood up, brushing Kire's hand off. "Is that why you tried to kill me before?"

"An unfortunate accident," said Kirei. "I was following my teacher's orders, and I was not the Overseer at that time. Now that I am the Overseer, I can no longer work with my teacher. The Church comes first."

Heavy footsteps at the end of the hallway, paced irregularly like they came from a drunkard, broke up the conversation.

"Emiya...Kiritsugu...," said Kayneth to nobody in particular. Kariya saw him shamble forward like a zombie.

Kariya saw Kirei tense into battle stance, drawing out six black keys, three in each hand, with a single fluid motion. Kariya marveled at this sight. The man had no confusion at all, just a mechanical, automatic response to any and all possible threats.

It was a level of martial prowess, of skill drilled into Kirei's body as an Executor, that Kariya could never hope to match.

"Why are you still helping me? Going so far as fighting for me?" asked Kariya as he also went into a rudimentary stance with his sword.

Kariya saw Kirei glance at his unprofessional stance. The priest made no reaction, but his eyes spoke volumes in scorn.

"Matou Kariya. It is understandable that you do not trust me." Kirei turned his stare to Kayneth. "However, I am not the type of person to let my investments go to waste."

That explained nothing, but Kariya wasn't the type to complain. He watched the priest ready for battle.

"There's no point," said Kariya. "I'm stronger than you. Faster than you." He pointed at the corrupted Volumen. "But I can't break that thing's defense."

Kariya noticed Kirei analyzing his arm and claws. He thought maybe the priest was taking his advice and reconsidering, but Kirei turned his head to Kayneth again without so much as an iota of hesitation.

"Didn't you hear me?" said Kariya.

Kirei didn't look at him, but still responded. "Judging from what I saw, that Mystic Code is an autonomous defense system. In addition, it serves as a refined offensive tool. We are twenty four meters away, but aren't being attacked. It has a limited range." The priest gestured to Kayneth, who ambled forward with unsteady steps that seemed ready to collapse at any moment. "The enemy is no longer in control of his wits."

How could the priest pick up that much information in so short a time? Regardless, just knowing things wouldn't change anything. Knowing a lion was going to savage you didn't change the outcome that you'd get mauled.

Kariya shook his head. "So what?"

"Trust is a virtue that pays itself back," said the priest.

Before Kariya could understand what Kirei meant, the priest had already begun his attack.