Chapter One

Mage Killer and Maiden

For the Einzberns, it had simply been convenient, but for Kiritisugu, it would feel like another form of rebellion that for once held beauty rather than ugliness, even if it was a fractured beauty.

But he certainly had no way of preparing himself for it. She was, after all, what they called a "homunculus".

For his part, Kiritsugu was not particularly familiar with the art of alchemy: it wasn't something he needed in his function as an assassin, as he'd earned the moniker of "Mage Killer" through effectively shedding the blood of many a mage in unmagelike ways. Many of his targets had gifted him with expressions of bewilderment and utter shock upon coming face-to-face with their death in his dark, vacant eyes.

So meeting a homunculus was a foreign enough situation for him as it was. More than that, but this crimson-eyed, silver-haired likeness of a woman evoked in Kiritsugu a strange enthrallment bordering on full-fledged fascination. He first saw her in the tube in which Jubstacheit von Einzbern—or Acht—had created her, but while Jubstacheit was talking, she opened her eyes within the fluid surrounding her to reveal her uniquely colored irises.

Maybe it was because they reminded him so much of blood.

Later, when he actually got to speak to her, it seemed by the way she sat in the chair by the fire, staring straight ahead with the blank prettiness of a doll, that she might not have even known how to respond to human speech. In his strategic frame of mind, he found himself muttering under his breath as he examined her, going on about how confusing it was that the vessel for the Holy Grail was this alchemically created female hominid as opposed to a simple cup.

Then those crimson eyes flicked his way.

Kiritsugu took a step back, but quickly recovered in his relief that she seemed to be able to respond to basic stimuli. Then he proceeded to ask the homunculus if she indeed understood him, to which she replied in the affirmative, addressing him by his full name as any machine might do.

Here, Kiritsugu became slightly annoyed, and from there he turned quite irksome when it was clear that this thing would be useless in a fight, in spite of the self-preservation instincts Jubstacheit had given her. Or what she automatically assessed to be instincts anyway, which was made clear when he struck her and she did nothing to block him.

Even as he helped her to her feet, he coldly declared that it might be better to simply destroy her and create a new vessel. Yet she somehow came to the conclusion that between the two of them, she was the stronger being. Overcome with frustration, Kiritsugu stalked out into the hall, desperate for the icy air outside, his hands quivering against his will as he shook out the cigarette he was gasping for.

The following day it was like Hell had frozen over as a huge snowstorm hit the forest which surrounded the Einzbern castle. Kiritsugu's heels at the very least had cooled enough that he could speak with Jubstacheit with a mostly civil tongue, but in all honesty he should have expected a mishap like this, mixing with these mages whose only desire for the Grail was the Third Magic.

One thing Kiritsugu had going for him was how he couldn't help relishing just a little in the fact that he had no intention of asking such a wish of the Holy Grail when he won it. No, he had his own design in mind, one that would scrub his bloody hands clean with the utterance of eight small words:

"I wish for true peace upon the Earth."

The miracle that was the Holy Grail was his last hope for that salvation, and then these idiots could move on from their obsession with something so vainglorious.

In the meantime, they had this homunculus they had forced upon him to answer for.

Jubstacheit was apologetic, though in a very prideful way. Yet as Kiritsugu was going in with the intention of having a new vessel created, Jubstacheit informed him that, given circumstances, he and the other Einzbern alchemists had decided to give this newest homunculus a test that would determine her true durability.

That test was to throw her naked out into the middle of the freezing woods outside and leave her to the mercy of the starving wolves, as they had done with countless other "failed" homunculi. According to Jubstacheit, Kiritsugu should have no complaints as to her durability if this one were in fact to return to the castle alive.

But as much as Kiritsugu was frustrated with this homunculus, he did not forget the expression of pain on her face when he struck her the day before, nor how pitiable it was to see her sprawled and helpless-looking on the floor. Jubstacheit's words triggered something in Kiritsugu's mind that had him transplant that image into the snowstorm outside, and he could quite clearly picture a pack of ravenous wolves tearing at the homunculus, staining the white snow with blood as crimson as her eyes. The blood of a girl this mage had created himself and would toss aside so easily just to prove a point. Certainly she was a homunculus but…she clearly felt pain.

And then words from a distant memory that had always haunted Kiritsugu surfaced, unbidden.

"Tell me, Kerry, what kind of man do you want to be?"

It was enough to not only express his disgust to Jubstacheit, but also to spur him into action. Actually, given his usual manner of careful planning and considering all variables that might come into play in a situation, this was the first time in a long time that he could remember acting so purely on impulse. Ignoring Jubstacheit's confused protests, Kiritsugu strode out of the castle with a sense of purpose that was different from what normally drove him. This time, instead of determinedly fighting against a crushing weight and self-imposed responsibility with the thought of billions of people crying out for salvation, he pressed onward with only one being—one person—on his mind.

After that, it was probably the cold that prevented any further logical thinking. Had it not been so, Kiritsugu might've reverted back to his usual pattern of considering things from a practical, non-emotional perspective, which for years had been his effective if ironic philosophy on fighting—ironic because even as he did not let emotion cloud his judgment, part of his ultimate drive was in fact the very passionate emotion of anger. Here though, the anger was somehow awakened as a sleeping beast, and he based his current actions entirely and actively on that emotion, rather than forcing himself not to feel anything because of it. His whole body trembled with it as he fought his way through the snow and wind in search of that homunculus.

Actually it was almost freeing, devoting himself to a singular task such as this, and a much simpler one to be sure than the grander one he'd had in mind since boyhood. There was a fairy tale element to it too, helped by the Germanic landscape of white silver around him: the knight who braved unspeakable dangers to rescue the princess.

No, that was delusional.

For all of the lives he had taken, each death had been something to serve a higher purpose, never because he simply wanted to kill them, never because he rejoiced in their demises. Not a bit. That was precisely why he could be so cold about it. Actually it was harder to divest himself of the sorrow of it, even when taking lives of people who, for all intents, deserved to die.

To let someone die, even a homunculus, was another matter. Not when he could save that life instead.

He pushed through the wood for some time, ducking under tree branches and any place that offered shelter as a means of finding the homunculus, in addition to keeping an eye out for movement in the snow. Given her silver hair and ivory skin, and the fact that he didn't even know a name for her to call out, it was going to be difficult to spot her in all this white.

Unless she was covered in blood.

But then he caught the sound of howling wolves, and he followed that like it was a siren.

Up ahead there was a burst of light, a result of what Kiritsugu could only guess was the homunculus' alchemy. When the trees opened up into a clearing, he caught the fleeing tails of the pack of wolves that had been howling, but there was no sign of the homunculus.

At least, not at first glance.

Being a skilled and master hunter, Kiritsugu was hardly dissuaded by the lack of obvious evidence pointing to the homunculus' presence. Already he imagined that the woman was likely injured and had crawled away to whatever closest shelter the wilderness could offer her, having successfully fended off the wolves.

Well, he'd have to give her credit for that. But still, if she was going to always come out of a situation worse for wear, she would be nearly as, if not just as, useless to him as she would not being able to fight at all.

Sure enough, he picked up a thin trail of blood threaded insubstantially into the snow. Following that, he tracked the homunculus down to where he found her curled up underneath the cage of low bracken. And here she had already passed out from the pain caused by her bleeding leg wound.

She was the very picture of a broken and abandoned doll, her eyelashes fringing her cheekbones dusted with fresh snow. Despite her desperate situation and Kiritsugu's frustration, he couldn't escape the fact that once again he felt a swell of enthrallment in seeing her. That she was lovely did not slip past his notice, and here she was, so wrecked and so lost, it evoked a surging pressure in his chest akin to the splintering of ice preparing to melt.

And it echoed the pain that had struck him when he'd witnessed the painful vampiric transformation of Shirley, a girl he had loved in childhood. The first girl.

"Tell me, Kerry," she had asked him, "what kind of man do you want to be?"

He felt again like that boy he had once been, who had looked at Shirley one day and realized that he liked looking at and being with her. The form of this homunculus was beautiful indeed, and such cruelty had marred that beauty unnecessarily, leaving her as cold and frightened as an orphaned baby bird.

The pressure in Kiritsugu's chest increased, and, with a kind of reverence that felt foreign to him, yet somehow warm within him, he knelt, reached underneath the bracken, and gently pulled out the unconscious woman. He wrapped her up in his long black coat to warm her and lifted her up into his arms as he stood. He shivered, though not only because of the cold, but also because of how fragile the homunculus felt.

Not hours before, he would have felt nothing but more frustration for what he had come across here today. But there was no frustration now that he could find as he strode back to the Einzbern castle, cradling the homunculus against his chest while her leg wound left a trail of scarlet drips in the snow.

Instead, there was just that relief at having found her alive.

It was almost like what he might have felt…had he been able to save Shirley as well…all those years ago.