Two Masters and two Servants stood on Rin's front lawn. The agromegalic death machine was worrying, yes, but the golden Lancer (at least, I assume he was Lancer, since he didn't look much like an Assassin or Caster) gave me a twitchy feeling for some reason.
A little girl watched me across the grass. Her hair and skin were white. She was wrapped in a purple hat and dress that looked like a mixture of silk and velvet. She reminded me of a baby rabbit – red eyes and all. Delicate.
I hadn't met Ilyasviel von Einzbern before, but I knew enough about her from my father's dinner conversation. I think Risei Kotomine had hoped to referee the Fifth War, and he'd gathered information on most of the potential competitors. Shame. He'd only missed it by a few years.
You might say that we were family, in a twisted sort of way - Ilya and I. The Magus Killer who'd pulled me from the inferno's womb had been her father.
Ilya waved at me, hopping up and down as she did so. It was adorable.
I waved back.
She curtsied.
I smiled.
She blushed a little.
I lobbed a Black Key at her head.
The shadowy blade sliced through the air at a hundred miles an hour. Ilya stared, eyes wide. Kept staring. Kept – jumped aside. It would have killed her if I'd been just a quarter second faster. As it was, she couldn't avoid it completely. The blade cut cleanly. Blood sprayed from her arm.
As conceptual weapons go, Black Keys are fairly useful. They can't hurt a Servant - much - but good luck doing that with anything short of daisycutter bombs. What Black Keys can do is cut mortal flesh like an obsidian knife through Jell-o. Even a homunculus's flesh.
Ilya's arm hung on by a few muscles. Even those were frayed at the edges. Blood reddened her hand as she tried to cover her stump from the night air. More blood pumped on the ground at regular intervals. Percussion for the symphony of violence around me.
Splorch…beat…splorch…beat…
"AAAAH!" Ilya said.
Cute. As. A. Button.
I was already running. My circuits opened. Prana flowed through my body. More Black Keys materialized between my fingers, whistling in the wind.
Another master blocked my path. Luviagelita Edelfelt.
Luvia.
She was just as I remembered her. She wore the same blue frilly dress, and blonde curls that fell most of the way down her torso. Her arms were bare, and accentuated those silly white gloves. I could see goosebumps from the night's chill.
I stopped. My feet dug furrows in the lawn.
To my left, a flare of light from an explosion. The two golden servants lit up the sky with four millennia of artifacts. The battlefield blazed green and white.
I glanced at the other side of the lawn just in time to see the Berserker swat my servant into the Tohsaka mansion. La Pucelle smashed through the masonry with a resounding crash of glass and stone.
And Rin Tohsaka, devotee of the Don Quixote School of Survival, was advancing toward the monster. Jewels glowed between her fingers.
That beautiful mask of bravery.
I'd helped Rin craft it after Tokiomi had died – piece by piece, even as I'd cherished the pain Rin had felt at her father's passing. Purpose. Duty. A child's devotion to a parent's ideals, like duct tape over a shattered eggshell. And it had somehow held Rin together, for all the mismatched edges. Glorious, broken little Rin.
I thought quickly.
Miss Edelfelt had been making quite a production of watching me warily from her wrestler's crouch – and not attacking. Ilya was just trying not to cry out in pain. I peered over Luvia's shoulder.
"You're the homunculus?" I said. "Ilya, isn't it? Or do you prefer Miss Emiya?"
Ilya refused to look at me – assisted, no doubt, by the need to nurse her bleeding wreck of an arm. But I caught her wince at the name.
"Kill him, Luvia," she whispered.
"..If you think about it, your father cared more about saving me than you. A boy he'd never met."
"KILL him, Luvia."
"And now you're stuck fighting in a murder tournament for people who don't care about you. Sorry – other people who don't care about you. Interesting, isn't it?" I said.
Red eyes rose to meet mine. Involuntarily, Ilya's fingers tensed around her arm. And oh, how those mangled nerve endings must have screamed in protest.
"That's—aaaahh!—that's…because my father was a hero. Not a…a coward like you."
"…Or maybe he didn't care about leaving his 'daughter' – with scare quotes – an orphan?" I said.
"W-what?"
"I mean, the Magus Killer only weighed human lives, right?" I said. "Not the lives of…well, you're basically just enchanted dirt, when you come right down to it."
"YOU are going to DIE! Berserker! Come-"
"No!" Luvia hissed. "That's what he wants. He's trying to draw your Servant off."
"Then YOU do it!" Ilya shrieked
Luvia's bare shoulders tensed. She swallowed. Looked back-
I lunged. The Black Keys rematerialized in an instant.
Luvia was quick, though – as anyone who'd gotten the better of Rin in sparring would have had to be.
Rin and Luvia had only fought once, a year ago. Both had spent the rest of the afternoon in bed, whining about their respective injuries while your humble correspondent performed nurse-and-waiter duties. I'd spoon-fed chicken soup to Rin over her own protests and her rival's cackling.
Luvia's technique had been remarkable. A wrapping, winding octopus. Rin being Rin, she'd tried at first to match Luvia on her own terms – and had discovered that Shuai Jiao throws usually put her on the wrong end of a grapevine or hip toss. After years of Rin trying to "teach" me throws by launching me head over heels, I hadn't been able to suppress a grin.
But I'd paid close attention to that little match.
I tossed up a Black Key, and caught it in an overhand grip. The blade pointed at the grass, now. Amateurish. Sloppy. I swept it down, over her guard.
Luvia's eyes opened a fraction. Like Ilya, she acted for a little while as if time was standing still. And then, she snapped out of it. In that crucial instant, her face hardened from surprise to anger.
Luvia caught my hand. Not a surprise - she'd trained to do it countless times. I hardly felt her palm slap against my wrist. Years of bajiquan conditioning against tree branches had numbed it.
I tugged. Luvia held on. Her left leg swung outside mine, and she pulled me in. Her other hand clasped my wrist. Turned. Turned…I pulled back. One might as well have tried to unwind a mechanical spool. With a final yank, Luvia anchored my elbow over her own shoulder, and locked out my arm. Pulled down.
My elbow stung with that hollow, disconnected pain you get from a joint lock. Luvia's back was exposed – and safe. I couldn't stab her without breaking my own arm.
So I did.
I wrenched my torso to the left, snapping my own arm over her shoulder with a grinding crack. My fingers lost sensation. Some nerves tingled. Others burned in agony. I nearly bit through my lip, trying to ignore the way my forearm flopped across Luvia's chest at an unnatural angle.
I materialized Black Keys in my other hand. Luvia's back was so wonderfully exposed. Three dabs of warmth leaked onto my fingers when I buried the Black Keys up to their hilts.
Luvia screamed. Coughed. Tried to retch. I wrenched upward, and she screamed all the louder.
That look. That wide-eyed look as Luvia choked on her own fluids. It was almost…betrayal. I shushed her. Straightened one of her curls just so across her forehead. Luvia probably smelled her own blood on my fingers before she went into shock.
A shudder ran through my body like a warm caress.
I wondered what thoughts were racing through Luvia's mind as she felt the rest of her life drizzling onto Rin's lawn.
Perhaps memories of the times she'd come to Fuyuki, and taunted Rin about Rin's unsuccessful "relationship" with me. (Cue furious blush and equally furious shouting match.) Perhaps the room that Luvia had always boasted that she'd reserve at the Clock Tower – 28th room, top floor, Norwich student dormitories. Her family's "traditional" room. She was going to move in there someday, you see. Oh, yes. She'd impress all the stodgy old professors, and show them what an Edelfelt was made of, and…
…not anymore.
The body went limp. The show was over.
My Black Key came out with a wet schlick. Luvia's body twitched as I pulled it free. Two more materialized between my fingers.
I looked up at Ilya.
"Run, little rabbit," I said.
For an instant, Ilya seemed riveted in place, red eyes wide as dinner plates.
"B-Berserker! Berserker!"
A brown humanoid wall seemed to appear out of nowhere. It roared, eyes gleaming. I felt a cold thrill of fear as I dodged that jagged stone weapon.
Berserker moved faster than anything its size had a right to move. An animate utility shed that could glide like a dancer. I jumped away. It followed, slashing. Berserker's blade tore gouges in the yard. Clipped the edge of my coat.
I weaved. Feinted. Threw a Black Key at Berserker's eyes. For a split-second, the creature moved with me – and exposed Ilya. Black Keys materialized in my other hand, still numb and hanging from a ruined arm. That strange, constricted feeling had spread. Couldn't grip.
…Berserker hadn't been paying attention to the snapped arm, though. I spun on the ball of my foot and twisted to the right, lobbing the Black Keys as soon as they appeared between my fingers. The pressure was just enough to keep them from flying off. My arm bent at an unnatural angle…and then swung forward like a slingshot.
White. Hot. Pain. The bone jabbed through the skin.
"AAAAH!"
I couldn't concentrate on anything. I forced myself into a roll, and desperately hoped Berserker hadn't been expecting it. He hadn't.
Opened my eyes.
Berserker no longer towered over me. He stood yards away, in front of Ilya. She was weeping and writhing in pain.
Two of the Black Keys had gone wide. The first had impaled a stone, and its brother was buried in the tree beyond it.
The third had drawn a line of red across Ilya's left side. Her command seal blazed.
"Home!" she shrieked. "Take me—"
The giant swept her up and thundered away in a single smooth movement.
I collapsed on the lawn. Face-first. It smelled like dirt and grass stains. The urge to puke my guts out was almost irresistible.
"Kirei!"
Leave me alone. I'm expiring.
"Kirei! What did you—oh crap, oh crap, oh—"
Rin.
Of course, Rin.
Probably annoyed that I wasn't dying from exhaustion according to some textbook's instructions. She gasped when she touched my arm. So did I.
"Agh!"
"S-sorry…I didn't—"
"S'fine," I wheezed.
"Master? Are you…oh, dear."
My own servant. Even half-drowned out by my own throbbing temples, I smiled at the sound of those soft, rolling r's and stretched vowels.
"Idiot!" Rin said. "You—you could have been killed!"
This from a girl who'd tried to kill Berserker in single combat. Rin was passing a jewel over my body. Fussing with my pulse. Checking the damage.
"C-can you imagine h-how difficult that would have been? To see my apprent…my f-friend die? If that gold servant hadn't backed off and run away, we wouldn't have reached you before—! A-and what were you thinking when you—"
Rin saw.
And stopped talking.
There was Luvia, staring up with dead eyes. Rin seemed to sway slightly. She covered her mouth.
"You…you killed…" she whispered. "Luvia was - Why—how did she—"
I rolled onto my back. Every nerve contributed its own scintilla of discomfort.
"Servant Saber," I said. "Escort Rin back to the mansion."
Wonder of wonders, Rin didn't protest as my servant lead her back. She stumbled along like a sleepwalker.
Fresh from his battle with whoever Luvia's servant had been, Gilgamesh grinned from ear to ear.
"Delicious," he said.
They set me up in the library. Rin handled the healing process crisply. Professionally. Every few minutes, she returned another glowing jewel. My cartilage and skin clove together again. I focused on the pain. Turned every bit of my attention toward it. Winced when it throbbed in my mind. It's a convenient thing to have one's atonement ready at hand.
Rin hadn't met my eyes. Not once. It was as if the three of us were still supposed to be children – Luvia, Rin, and I.
Then again, she was alive.
It was nearly two in the morning when Rin finally fell asleep. Her black hair made arabesque loops on the table where she'd laid her head. The polished walnut fogged with each breath. Inhale. Exhale. Inhale…
Probably an accident. A day's exhaustion finally catching up to her...except that Rin Tohsaka never, ever, ever made mistakes. Ever. And don't you forget it.
I smiled and sat there, listening to the grandfather clock thlunk along. Two o'clock….two thirty…two forty-five…
Tokiomi Tohsaka's painting seemed to be glaring down at me from its gold frame. The painter had executed it in an older style: pigments in Tokiomi's burgundy jacket and that curlicued black tie had faded. The goatee was a tiny dot of paint. You could see a ridge where the brush had withdrawn.
In the candelabrum's flickering, I could almost imagine that he was moving. Frowning.
…three o'clock…
Someone tapped the door. I told whoever it was to come in, and saw my own servant's reflection in the cabinet's glass. She still wore her armor, tiara, and purple cloak. Blonde. Fine features marred by the most delicate of frowns.
Jeanne.
"Kirei," she said. "Are you well?"
"Healing. Almost done by now."
She exhaled.
"I am glad to hear it," she said. "About today…"
"Going up against two masters alone was a tactical decision," I said. "Judging from your trouble with Berserker, our best chance was to either draw it off or take Ilya out."
Her lips thinned slightly. She shook her head.
"That is not what I meant," she said.
"What, then?"
"You're…different, aren't you?" she said.
That fluttery, sickly feeling oozed into my chest. I felt my fingers tensing.
"If you're trying to take confession, you're the wrong gender," I said. "As others might have mentioned to you."
"The girl you killed—"
"Rin's alive," I said. "One of the enemy masters isn't. I did my job, and I'd expect a Servant to understand that better than most."
"And that's all?" she said.
I stayed silent.
"You forget that I fought alongside men who…enjoyed the pain of others," she said. "You hide it better than some."
"And they all made amends, naturally," I said.
"Some did."
An idea struck me. A spiteful, vicious idea. I kept my face as blank as possible, and wandered over to the book shelf. My fingers skipped along leather, wood, and dust. They came to rest on a black-bound book, and I leafed through until…
Yes…
I slid the book across the coffee table with a slish. La Pucelle picked it up. She read, and I watched her face fall. Her eyes grew moist as the parade of horrors marched by: dead children, body parts in jars, prisoners restrained with ropes and hooks. Her gauntlet covered her mouth.
"It…it is a terrible thing," she whispered. "That Gilles would - Five centuries beyond help…I-I should have-"
"Perhaps your efforts weren't as successful as you thought."
Her voice was still trembling, but something in it stiffened.
"It is a terrible thing, Kirei Kotomine," she said. "There is no reprieve for Gilles de Rais now. A man's fate should not be used as you have done – tossing it in my face with a smile, like a schoolman's argument."
My insides squirmed a little. I looked away.
"…I'm sorry."
Another half-truth. Saying what I should have felt. Deciding that it was true because I'd willed it so. It's so much easier to decide that you regret something; the emotions can't get in the way.
She closed the book. Laid it down gingerly on the table. A sad smile crossed her face as her fingers left the cover.
"No, you are not sorry," she said. "But I forgive you, Kirei Kotomine. Because you fervently wish that you were."
I realized that she'd meant it. A throwaway line from anyone else. All those unshed tears in her eyes, and she'd meant it.
My fingernails dug into my palm until they broke skin.
"You say that as if thinking correctly changes anything," I said.
Was that bitterness? I wondered if it should bother me, somehow.
"It is a first step. Action follows thought. Virtue follows action."
"Yeah, you had me up to that third step. I've tried the Pascal stuff. A lot. Unless you're asking me to go full flagellant mode again, I don't see how I can improve on-"
"Again?"
"Tried once. Didn't work. Horrified Rin, too, which was hilarious…and…er, exactly the opposite of what I'd been aiming for. Originally."
Rather than answer, she rested her head on my shoulder. I felt the slightest bit of pressure from her chin; warmth came in waves from her breaths. It was a gentle rhythm. Soothing.
I felt knots loosen that I hadn't known existed. Muscles relaxed. As if decaying tissue had slid off, leaving unblemished skin behind. I remembered strains of lullabies I'd never heard.
"Rejoice, then," she said softly. "For you have been given your own impossible burden to bear - and overcome. You have been challenged to prove yourself, Kirei."
Her whispers tickled my ear. I could sense her lips curling into a smile.
"… I almost envy you," she said.
And then, she drew back. Cold air returned where her face had been, and I could no longer hear my own heartbeat echoing against her. Like a blanket stripped away on a winter night.
I shook my head. It didn't quite clear. There was still this warm miasma there, like an emotional afterimage. I allowed myself to sink into the chair for the briefest of moments. That sensation wouldn't completely fade until the next evening.
"Did you give your English judges this much trouble?" I said.
She arched an eyebrow.
"You're a passable theologian for a young man," she said. "I've argued with better."
"…And the sugar-coated axe falls," I said.
She brought a finger to her lips. The edges of those wide blue eyes crinkled as she smiled.
"Oh. Hadn't you heard? Humility is a virtue, Kirei Kotomine."