Chapter Twelve

New Promise

It wasn't long before Ilya, still adjusting to the outside world, squeezed her small eyes shut again and returned to sleeping so trustingly in Kiritsugu's arms. Aloisia took her from her father and settled her in the small, soft little bassinet—Kiritsugu hadn't noticed it until now. He did notice though a little piece of himself break away and go with Ilya when the maid took her away from him.

Irisviel rose and peered in at her sleeping child after Aloisia bobbed them a curtsy and left. Pure love for Ilya still radiated from her in a soft after-glow. Then with a sigh she excused herself to have a much-needed and much-deserved bath. But not before leaving her husband with a tender kiss of gratitude for having given her the chance to give birth to such a beautiful baby.

Kiritsugu watched her go, and felt a part of himself leave with her too. She had certainly gone above and beyond this time in proving her own strength: here she was just after giving birth and still able to walk it off as she did. Though he did see that she moved with a measure of caution, but no one would have guessed just by looking at her that she'd just had a baby.

Heaving a sigh himself, he got up too, and rang for some tea. He thought she still might like something hot and soothing to drink, and despite her not needing to eat, in addition to the occasional craving she'd had while pregnant, she had in fact developed a strong liking for tea.

While he waited, he shrugged off his suit jacket and laid it over a chair near the fire, and then he took off his tie and draped that there too. Stretching, he couldn't help but privately commend the maids on having changed the sheets on the bed as efficiently and thoroughly as they had, for he knew there had to have been a fair amount of blood.

And then he covered his mouth, overwhelmed, thinking of an exhausted Irisviel, immediately after giving birth, then giving orders to change out the sheets, make everything clean and pristine...so he wouldn't have to see...her blood...

"Iri…."

Even her true exhaustion she might have hidden, and his heart beat a little faster in anxiety at the thought. Behind the door to the private bathroom connected to the bedchamber, he heard the water turn on and the splish of Irisviel sliding into the porcelain tub.

Then he caught a movement from Ilya's bassinet. At the sight, he managed to forget his fears for a moment and watch in fascination as his daughter jerked once or twice in her sleep, flexing her tiny, wrinkly pink fingers, her little chest rising and falling with every small breath she took.

He let out an exhalation of wonder, a simple, "Wow," as it all slowly sank in a little more for him, the reality of his fatherhood. A bittersweet smile touched his lips. "You're so oblivious to how incredible you are." He chuckled softly. "And once you learn, there won't be any stopping you, will there?"

There came a low knock on the door and the tea arrived. Kiritsugu thanked the maid, and after she had nodded and left, he called for Irisviel through the bathroom door, still careful not to wake Ilya.

"Iri?"

"Yes?"

She sounded well enough, but if Kiritsugu was honest with himself, he knew he'd feel better once he could keep a proper eye on her.

"When you're finished, I had some hot tea brought up."

"Oooh, that sounds heavenly!" Irisviel gushed, in no short supply of enthusiasm. "Thank you so much, Kiritsugu. I'll be just another minute."

Kiritsugu heard the sound of water again as Irisviel came up out of the tub. When she emerged, he looked up from laying out the tea things on the little walnut table, and noticed and appreciated as he always did the way the white towel wrapped around her and hugged the curves of her body. He was relieved too to see there was healthy color in her face, rather than exhausted pallor.

On the other hand she did give a very heavy sigh when she sank into her chair by the fire with that cup of tea, swathed now in her nightgown and a terry cloth robe.

"Feel better?" Kiritsugu asked as he joined her.

"Much," Irisviel admitted.

"And you?"

Kiritsugu set his own cup and saucer aside after taking a few sips. "Well...I won't lie, you had me worried there."

Irisviel seemed a little downcast at this, and traced the rim of her own cup with her finger. "I'm sorry."

Kiritsugu gave her a reassuring smile. "It isn't your fault. No matter what, there're always risks when a woman gives birth. That much I do know."

"So you have little experience with children?"

"Hardly any. Even Maiya doesn't really count as she was an older teenager when I found her, and then at that point she'd seen too much to think like a child anymore..."

"I'm glad you and I are really in the same boat on this then." Irisviel's voice trembled just a little, betraying a doubt she possessed of her own concerning her becoming a mother, how well she would actually manage as one.

Kiritsugu looked over into the crackling flames of the fireplace. "Ilya was a perfect angel while you were in the tub though. She slept so quietly. She still is."

The smile came back to Irisviel's gentle features and she glanced once at the bassinet beside her and Kiritsugu's bed.

"You'll do fine," Kiritsugu told her tenderly, picking up his cup again and taking another sip.

Irisviel looked back at him and made a face that Kiritsugu found more amusing than intimidating.

"Of course I will." She shook back her hair in her usual gesture of superiority, but Kiritsugu only quietly laughed.

And then Irisviel laughed too.

Just as they were finishing up their tea, Ilyasviel woke up, giving a little cry, and Irisviel surmised that she must be hungry after she went by the books and made an attempt to get her daughter to suckle, and succeeded in doing so.

"So she'll want to eat like a normal human being," Kiritsugu observed aloud as his wife took on her first task as a mother in nursing their child in her same chair by the fire.

"It would seem so," said Irisviel, cradling Ilaysviel close as she fed her. "Grandpapa said that was a distinct possibility and it makes sense given all those pregnancy cravings I had."

Oddly enough, as soon as she said this, not only did another one of the maids come in to clear the tea, but Jubstacheit himself appeared with the intent of inspecting the newborn Ilyasviel.

Naturally, Kiritsugu was wary, not to mention just a hair annoyed.

The Einzbern family head was really the last person he wanted to see, but he supposed the man had to give his blessing of sorts.

"Let me see, Irisviel," he commanded.

Kiritsugu tensed a moment when he thought Jubstacheit was going to take Ilya out of his wife's arms, but it seemed the old man had no interest in coming into contact with an infant. He merely stroked his frozen waterfall of a beard as he bent over and inspected the unaware, suckling Ilyasviel with the usual cold intrigue of a scholar.

"Excellent," he muttered approvingly. "I'm pleased to see everything went well."

"Indeed it did," said Irisviel, unable to keep the quiet pride out of her voice.

Acht's rare and momentary reaction of surprise at this was strangely satisfying to the watchful Kiritsugu.

"And it seems she does in fact hunger as a normal human child does?" he further inquired.

"Yes."

"Very good."

Ilyasviel's crimson eyes opened then as if suddenly aware of the old man's presence. Kiritsugu bit his lip, frowning again at the way Jubstacheit was observing his daughter.

Almost greedily. Much the way a wolf would be on the edge of smiling sinisterly just before biting down on the neck of its prey.

A further reminder of how Jubstacheit looked at this whole situation.

Just as Kiritsugu was about to speak up though, luckily Acht chose that moment to withdraw his initial inspection. With hands clasped behind his back, he offered the two new parents his congratulations and then took his leave, attended by the maid who came to collect the tea things.

Once he had gone, Kiritsugu felt like he could really breathe again.

"I suppose the rest of the family will do the same at some point." He couldn't keep the disgruntlement out of his voice.

"Yes, but don't fret over it," said Irisviel placatingly.

Ilya, who had looked up at Acht and was decidedly indifferent to his presence, rolled her red eyes back up to her mother's face as she went on suckling. Irisviel murmured low, adoring words to her, still illuminated with shining love and joy—such things she had learned and taken to heart from her husband. Just watching this little scene for a moment was more than enough to make Kiritsugu's brief disgruntlement disappear, and he softened again. And when Ilya had had her fill of her mother's milk, Irisviel asked him to take Ilya again while she tucked her breast away behind her robe.

Though Kiritsugu still had his doubts, there could be no denying that he felt something warm and sweet like gentle light slide into place inside him when he was holding his tiny daughter in his arms again. And she looked up at him now with those same strange, lovely red eyes—really looked at him for the first time in this new life she was beginning—and he couldn't sure, but he had this feeling like she was imprinting on him, perhaps just as she'd been doing with Irisviel, much like the newborn chicks of some birds do with their mothers. Maybe all this bird metaphor was just coming from how much Irisviel still reminded him of a lovely bird in many ways.

"What—? Oh no..." Irisviel moaned, pulling Kiritsugu out of admiring the look of his child.

For a split-second, he thought she was experiencing a severe and sudden bout of physical pain. But then he saw her staring at her hands while great tears of utter sorrow rolled down her lovely cheeks and dropped like rain into her palms.

"Iri?" Kiritsugu knelt down beside her in her chair, cradling Ilya against his chest.

"I'm sorry," she wept, still staring at her hands. "I didn't want you to see...but I think...Grandpapa's visit...I couldn't help it..." She shut her eyes tight, the tears flowing as if there might be no end to them.

At the mention of Jubstacheit, Kiritsugu didn't have to ask what had his wife in such sudden despair.

After the fiasco of the meeting where Irisviel had fainted, the three of them had had another meeting soon after to cover what they hadn't been able to get to. Jubstacheit had gone into further detail then with them about the adjustments he had made to Ilyasviel while still in her mother's womb.

In the event of a Fifth War, Jubstacheit, from the moment Kiritsugu and Irisviel had come to him asking permission to give birth to a child between them, planned to create such a new kind of homunculus with even greater mechanisms, by not only implanting the secrets of the Holy Grail into the embryo, but also by adding Magic Circuits to her exterior, thereby making her physical body capable of becoming a Vessel of the Grail all on her own, and in so doing, become the experimental specimen for the Mystic Code of the Einzbern family, the heart that controlled the Great Grail, and a part of the key to obtaining the Third Magic, the Einzberns' greatest desire in all of this.

If Irisviel and Kiritsugu should fail in their attempt to obtain this for the Einzberns, their daughter was destined to be the next step in this with this Code, called the "Dress of Heaven", which in Kiritsugu's opinion would strip Ilya of far more than what Irisviel would be forced to give up in the events to come in the Fourth Heaven's Feel. To him, it went beyond merging a consciousness with an other-worldly wish-granting device and was outright enslavement to the Grail. He would never see it the way the Einzberns did, but that was to be expected at this point.

Looking at their newborn daughter and knowing this, the cruelty of it caused Irisviel and Kiritsugu both great pain.

But just as Irisviel had done for him earlier, with an ache of love in his heart Kiritsugu reached up with one hand and wiped away her tears. She looked at him, leaning into his touch as though it were a crutch, and he felt then just how tired she really was. She had indeed been trying to hide it from him.

"Iri..." He sighed and then smiled again with reassurance for her. "You should rest a bit. You'll feel better, at least a little."

Irisviel could only express her continued doubt by crying harder into his hand. The ache in Kiritsugu's heart grew painfully, and with his characteristic decisiveness, he withdrew his touch just so he could put Ilya down in her bassinet. Though she squirmed and looked even a touch forlorn at his setting her down, he left his daughter with the same reassuring smile he'd left with his wife, and at once she relaxed as if she did indeed understand. Then he returned to his weeping Irisviel's side and scooped her up in his arms.

Irisviel made a small sound that interrupted her flood of tears, and very gently her husband carried her to their bed and laid her down upon it, settling her on the side closest to where Ilya was already drifting off for a nap.

He reached over and wiped away what tears still clung to her soft skin. "Oh Iri...and you say I feel too much."

Irisviel managed a watery laugh. "Come on, don't make fun."

But Kiritsugu was glad just to see her smile. He leaned over and touched his lips to her soft silver hair, catching traces of her iris scent. "Get some sleep," he murmured. "As much as you need to. I'll be here when you wake up. Like always."

Irisviel nodded and closed her eyes.

Kiritsugu watched her very intently and fixedly, and didn't move until he was certain she was deeply asleep. He cast a look over Ilya, making certain she too was in the safe cradle of sleep before he rose from the edge of the bed.

He stepped outside just for a moment of air, while he stood guard at the door to his and Irisviel's bedchamber. He succumbed very briefly to his own exhaustion, leaning just for a second against the corridor wall.

And then he realized he wasn't alone in the hall. Aloisia was there, carrying a stack of fresh towels. He felt his expression freeze over.

Aloisia seemed offended by it and steeled herself for a frown of disapproval. "She's hidden a lot of her pain from you," she told him quietly. "If you want to know the truth of it, she gave birth much earlier in the morning, before dawn even broke. The rest of the time was spent trying to build the illusion that she wasn't nearly as exhausted and in pain as she was."

Kiritsugu said nothing.

There was nothing he wanted or needed to prove to this woman. He didn't even really care what she thought of him. If he spent all his time doing such foolish things, he wouldn't be able to do his job as an assassin at all.

Without a word he pushed past Aloisia, making for his office. He needed to put in a call to Maiya.

"Aren't you even going to say anything? She screamed your name so loudly I could hardly bear it, but every time I went to go fetch you, she screamed even louder at me not to do it!"

The failed Einzbern homunculus sounded on the edge of tears. Kiritsugu could now see quite clearly, after all his time spent here, why it was Aloisia was one of the failed ones, why she had proven herself useless to Jubstacheit von Einzbern for what he wished to accomplish.

Still, even if she was as passionate from the start as Irisviel had not started out being, it was still Irisviel who had succeeded, in that it gave Kiritsugu the comfort that Irisviel might be the only person capable of carrying out her task without having to force herself to become a monster...like he did.

He paused though, and said, "Would you be so kind, Aloisia, as to watch over my wife and daughter until I return?"

Leaving Aloisia stunned in the hallway, he disappeared to his office, and only there did he take the time to let her words about Irisviel take its toll on him, sinking to his knees and burying his face in his hands.

"Oh Iri...you don't always have to be so strong...not for me…."

Despite his not having seen rest in so long, Kiritsugu couldn't bring himself to sleep after he'd finished his report with Maiya. Back in his and Irisviel's bedchamber, he found Aloisia at her post, and he thanked her for it. It wasn't important to him whether or not she believed that he truly cared for his family, what was important was that the only part of this castle that he considered his home—and those within it—were protected.

As soon as Aloisia left in her usual huff that she reserved just for him, he took up her position looking after the still-sleeping Irisviel and Ilyasviel. He kept vigil in the writing desk chair the same way he did the day Irisviel fell ill. Not long after he sat with his elbows on his knees and his chin resting on his folded hands in a pose of utter patience, Irisviel stirred awake, as if she knew he had come back to her like he'd promised.

She smiled and reached for his hand. "Ah Kiritsugu. There you are."

Kiritsugu returned her smile, but he couldn't find words to speak, thinking again of what Aloisia had told him.

Irisviel was as perceptive as ever though, and after studying him a moment, she sighed, shaking her head. "That Aloisia. She's so good at blurting things out when she feels strongly about something. I think she's the first Einzbern homunculus to cut subtlety out of her life on purpose."

This managed to get a laugh out of her husband, even in the aching depths of his empathy for her. Still, he held her hand tighter, but just as gently. Even then though, there was nothing more that needed to be said. It was over and done with, and for now the both of them were just happy they could have this present time together. It was an unspoken agreement between them too that they were both going to always do everything to be strong for the other, and the other was simply going to have to deal with it. It was something that was either going to break them or ensure their victory in the battles they would face in the future. Kiritsugu prayed it would be the latter. Especially after everything...

Ilyasviel stirred awake then, crying again tearlessly for more of her mother's milk, and just to be held too. Kiritsugu helped his wife sit up so she could nurse their child again.

"Shouldn't you get some rest then now?" Irisviel asked as Ilya suckled against her.

"I'm fine," Kiritsugu insisted. He didn't want to leave her side. He was suddenly so happy being with her and Ilya, just like this, he wanted it to last.

Irisviel rolled her eyes though, seeing through his fib but kindly let him have his way. She knew he would sleep when he couldn't manage wakefulness any longer.

"What are we going to do with him?" Irisviel asked her daughter, as if she would know.

Ilyasviel went on eating away, looking wide-eyed up at her mother, as though drinking in her face as deeply as she was drinking her milk.

"Are you still nervous?" Kiritsugu asked on another quiet laugh.

"A little still, but not as much as before. Because I know you're just as nervous as I am. If not more so." And she winked at him in affectionate encouragement.

"Hm." Kiritsugu chuckled again, too happy for words now, except:

"Iri...I know…I don't tell you this very often...but...I love you. So very much. You and Ilya both…so much…."

Irisviel hesitated, and then her smile widened, her eyes brightening with what were unmistakably tears of joy. "Oh Kiritsugu...even if you don't say it, I know it every time you look at me, every time you speak my name."

"Still. I hope I can say it more often." Kiritsugu watched as Ilya's eyes flicked in his direction, already so alert. So small and so precious.

If only because, he thought to himself, no matter how much time we have left together, I know already that it will never be enough.

Irisviel shook her head again. And then she patted the spot beside her on the bed, inviting him to join her there. "Come on you. A little nap won't hurt. You look like you're going to collapse."

"Ah...well, there never is any point in arguing with you is there? I guess I have no choice."

He laughed again, and so did she, as he came around and laid down beside her on their bed. She reached over and ran her fingers briefly through his dark hair as he curled up on top of the coverlet.

As it turned out, he was actually so exhausted that he didn't even realize he'd fallen asleep until he found himself waking up a little while later mid-afternoon, with his empty stomach growling and voracious for something to eat.

Blinking open his eyes, he found Irisviel watching him, mirroring him as she too lay on her side. It seemed Ilyasviel had gone back to sleep in her bassinet. Really this whole ordeal had been rough on all three of them.

"Hello," Irisviel whispered.

Kiritsugu reached over and brushed his knuckles against the side of her face. "Iri..."

He leaned in and touched his forehead to hers.

"Ilya's sleeping, I'm guessing?"

"Mm-hm. And I hope she dreams."

"Probably not yet," Kiritsugu said practically. "But once she acquires experiences, she will. So we'll be sure she'll have nothing but good dreams."

Irisviel grinned. "No nightmares."

Kiritsugu's stomach growled again, this time loud enough they could both hear it.

Irisviel sniggered. "I had some food brought up if you're peckish."

"Ah, peckish. Good word."

"It's all those books."

Kiritsugu laughed and sat up, finding a dish of sausage and kraut that at the very least filled him, even if it was all too rich for his liking.

"I was watching you sleep," Irisviel confessed.

Kiritsugu looked over at his wife as he polished off his plate, which he had chosen to eat off of rather informally, sitting cross-legged with it on the bed. Irisviel meanwhile had her knees drawn up to her chest with her hands clasped around them as she sat with him.

She was hiding her radiant smile in those knees, but Kiritsugu could tell she was smiling by the way her bright red eyes looked. It was terribly adorable.

Kiritsugu raised an eyebrow and then snorted in amusement. "I'm not all that attractive when I sleep, you know. I think I let my mouth hang open too much."

"True, but that doesn't make you any less attractive," Irisviel informed him. "You're so relaxed and at peace when you sleep. When you sleep without any disturbances of course." She burrowed further into her knees. "Oh darling father of my child."

Kiritsugu paused in chewing his next bite, staring at her.

"I can already tell she adores you," Irisviel went on, her voice throbbing with love for him. "She's so calm and happy in your arms, and she doesn't even know what those things are yet! But I think she feels it in the way you hold her...that you love her dearly...and that you're a good man. The same way I can tell...when you hold me."

Kiritsugu finally managed to gulp, but it did nothing to alleviate the rising lump in his throat. It was amazing to him that even now he was still surprised and thrown off-guard by how much Irisviel moved him with her words, that it served to make him love her even more.

Finally he croaked her name in a low, tender voice. "Iri…."

He tried to look away, feeling his shame again. But Irisviel reached over and cupped his face in her hand, made her look him in the eye as she now sat up straight with her characteristic brand of regality. He had no choice but to answer the call of her touch.

"We're parents now. She'll depend on us."

"Yes. Indeed, you're right."

Kiritsugu managed a genuine smile again. For so long he'd carried the weight of the world depending on him. But his wife and child, they would need him for the time they would have together, and he was more than willing to give all he had for them.

He only hoped…that when the time came for him to return to the world…he could still do what had to be done. If he couldn't hold up his end in all of this…then all Irisviel was doing for him would be for nothing, and then he wouldn't be able to look at Ilya again…haunted by the shadow of his failure. And Irisviel would never forgive him either, infinitely kind as she was.

Looking at Ilya now, he didn't simply see her as his future he wanted nothing more than to protect, he saw her as something that represented the future of the world, and he wanted to be in her eyes someone worthy of her adoration. He knew that if he succeeded in making her happy for the rest of her life, then that would mean everything would be all right in the end.

He liked to think now that when the time for him came to reassume his role as a cold killer, he would be able to do it because of what he felt for Irisviel and Ilya, rather than be hindered by it. Otherwise, that would be his greatest failure yet.

And maybe, maybe when the time came for him to die, he could do so without any regrets.

What Kiritsugu had told Irisviel, that he had little to no experience with children before now was, for all intents and purposes, true. The most he could say he'd had was cursory encounters with children he had been forced to kill, or had noticed in passing. Those incidents had truly tested his resolve. The children he had been forced to kill or render parentless had had no direct involvement in whatever evil he was trying to wipe out with his methods, they had been hapless victims caught in the crossfire as it were, even—or perhaps especially—in the case of child soldiers like Maiya. And as for ones he'd noticed in passing, he couldn't forget their cries and tears of pain either, for he came across them mostly in pockets of desperate areas or war zones, weeping over slaughtered mothers and fathers, or caught in the grip of a brainwashed killing frenzy, or just staring, too numb with incomprehensible suffering to do anything else. And Kiritsugu had managed of course to harden his heart to this when necessary, as easily as anything else, minus the rare occasion when, judging that a situation could afford to warrant his humanity, he would do something so trivial yet significant like give a coin to a child in the street of a foreign city begging to be allowed just one apple since she didn't have any money and was so very hungry.

And when Ilya cried, when his own child cried for simple things like to be fed and held, that was the part of him that her cries reached, the part of him that was driven by the simple desire to be able to watch over someone he cared about. Even with all the blood that stained his hands, he wouldn't deny his daughter his love because of that. Regardless of his own sense of unworthiness to be a father, Ilya wouldn't be punished for it, and in this, he was still able to remain united with his wife in their goal of raising a happy and healthy child on top of everything else. Thus, contradictory to what he had feared, he became rather as adept at the dance of parenting as Irisviel quickly learned to become.

Because of this too, there were many moments like the very day of her birth that were gifted to him where he forgot his despair and pain and could embrace his happiness without apprehension or regret. Irisviel still seemed to sense it in him at times when such things came back to haunt him, but she was always there with a gentle touch that at least offered him some respite and solace in his soul.

Meanwhile, as expected, the rest of the non-homunculus Einzberns were keen on having a good look at this new half-human half-homunculus, and needless to say, Kiritsugu wasn't too keen on their regarding his daughter solely for the scientific curiosity that she was. But he wasn't surprised that that was what happened either.

Really, he only got legitimately and rightly agitated when Malte stepped forward in the drawing room where they were all gathered to have his look. While he didn't say anything outright, Malte did make a face that Kiritsugu didn't appreciate.

"Why the look of disdain, Malte?" Greta von Einzbern teased.

Malte scoffed. "Do you have to ask? You're all making a ridiculous fuss over this thing."

Kiritsugu, choosing to occupy a corner off to the side as usual, clenched his fists, becoming tenser as he glared daggers into Malte's back.

"Well, we all made a fuss over you when you were born," Greta admonished.

"Ha! You're putting me down at the same level as that little doll?"

Since Irisviel was of a generally cheerful and upbeat disposition, it was actually very difficult to insult her. And in Kiritsugu's initial interactions with her, her ignorance of the world had resulted in her reacting to any harsh words he sent her way with nothing more than mechanical indifference or, later on, sincere and innocent curiosity. So it meant something when Kiritsugu observed that Malte's words visibly stung Irisviel. Acht did not fail to notice this either.

"Please don't say such things, Cousin Malte," said Irisviel quietly, hugging Ilyasviel closer to her as she sat in her usual drawing room chair. "She's just a baby."

Malte scoffed again. "Yet her purpose is no different from you and your foremothers. She'll die just the same as you will. Even if you do manage to obtain the Grail for us at the conclusion of the Fourth War."

The stuffy air in the room shifted dramatically, charged with sudden electric anger. Irisviel's face drained entirely of color, visibly wincing, her expression twisting into something wrought with such shock and pain such that Kiritsugu had not yet seen before on her, like Malte had just run her through with a sword. It tore at Kiritsugu's heart to see it, and fueled the spark of anger he nursed for Malte growing inside him.

At the same time, Greta and the other Einzberns—apart from Acht—sucked in their breath: even they found Malte's words uncalled for.

Fortunately, Acht tactfully stepped in, probably sensing all the way from across the room Kiritsugu's intention to strike Malte across the jaw.

Irisviel clearly sensed it too, sending a warning look in Kiritsugu's direction before turning a facade of forced cheeriness on her Einzbern kin, pretending to shake it off.

Oh yes. Kiritsugu knew all too well by now when Irisviel was only pretending to be happy for the sake of appearance.

So after Acht carefully had Malte dismissed from the room under the pretext of sending him off on a research errand, he respectfully excused himself from the drawing room, asking Irisviel and Kiritsugu to accompany him. Taking them aside in the privacy of his own private study, he immediately asked that Irisviel give Ilya to him.

Kiritsugu tensed again, naturally, but Irisviel, though it was clearly difficult for her, complied. And everything became all the clearer to Kiritsugu when Jubstacheit spoke after examining his daughter a moment, this time with the distant and focused expression of a medical doctor.

"Yes…I see what Malte was getting at. After all, these are part of his calculations from the initial adjustments we made to Ilyasviel…."

"What exactly are you saying?" Kiritsugu asked, though as usual he managed in Jubstacheit's presence to remain calm and cold in his tone and demeanor.

Jubstacheit continued to examine Ilyasviel without looking up. "I'm saying that like all Einzbern homunculi, regardless of what she gained genetically from you, Emiya, even in the case of her not having to serve in a Fifth War—in other words, even in the event of you and Irisviel succeeding—she will still live out her lifespan as if she was to serve in the War, meaning that she will die roughly in accordance with the timeline of the Fifth War's occurrence. She won't become the Grail, but roughly year after the time she was meant to become it, she will reach the end of her life. Furthermore, because of the fact that she was born as an insurance policy against your and Irisviel's possible failure in the Fourth War, her growth will thusly be distorted. That was where Malte came in. I had him handle those calculations."

In spite of himself, Kiritsugu clenched his fists again, this time so tight that even though Jubstacheit didn't see, he could feel his nails dig in deep enough into his palms that he felt himself cut into his own skin. He ground his teeth, just to maintain silence, otherwise he might have been screaming then.

"Brilliant as I am and as it all went, and as well a job as Malte did, I cannot entirely predict how exactly Ilyasviel will develop physically, so we shall have to wait and see and observe how she does. In the meantime, I would say your greatest concern would be to alert me if she seems to experience any strange defects in or deviations from her normal condition. Is that understood?"

At last he looked up, and when he met Kiritsugu's eyes, Kiritsugu could see that Acht saw that despite his restraint, what his son-in-law felt about all of this went beyond mere displeasure. Kiritsugu couldn't even manage any satisfaction in throwing Acht off enough to switch gears and look at Irisviel instead for an answer.

Predictably, Irisviel remained innocent and obedient and inclined her head. "Understood, Grandpapa."

But just then Ilya woke up, still in Jubstacheit's arms, and gave a little cry that was new from the ones she usually gave: one of distress. Then she gave another and another until it quickly escalated into outright bawling. With a pinched expression, Jubstacheit handed the wailing Ilya back to Irisviel, dismissing them from his study. But while Irisviel dandled Ilya and whispered reassurances to her, Kiritsugu's and Acht's eyes met again, and once more the two of them reached an understanding that they were both standing on the brinks of lines they would be wise not to cross, and agreed that neither would cross them, so long as the other remained in compliance.

This did nothing to alleviate one iota of the crushing weight of this new reality.

No matter what, I'll not only outlive my wife, but my daughter's death is already decided depending on how things go. How…how do you call that a future worth living for, after…?

Before he could stop himself, the second he and Irisviel were in their own rooms again, Kiritsugu let out a savage yell purely on impulse and kicked the writing desk chair clear across the room, slamming it into the opposite wall, causing a loud bang that disturbed an Ilya that had just managed to calm down. Having been startled so, she went right back to wailing.

"Kiritsugu," Irisviel began carefully, but Kiritsugu cut across her.

"No! I've had enough of this! I can't—I can't take it anymore!"

Indeed, for the longest time, Kiritsugu had believed that the day he had sunk Natalia had been his breaking point, that after that, there was nothing more he could lose, and from there he could devote himself entirely to desire to save as many lives as he could with each life he took that, whether good or evil, would cause the deaths of countless more if allowed to live.

On one hand, he knew that his sense of justice was childish, he had admitted this to the one person he could, and that was Irisviel. But on the other hand, he wanted a world where everyone was happy so badly, he knew going in that there would be sacrifice, even when the true price of that sacrifice wouldn't be made clear to him until that horrible day, when he was forced to take the life of the only family had had left. And at the same time, he was completely aware that what he did was nothing more than commit sin after sin after sin in this.

If he didn't, he wouldn't have turned to the option of the Holy Grail.

He distinctly recalled when he'd first come across it, the sincere joy he had felt in learning of it. While his strategist way of thinking did relish in some sense of victory now and then when appropriate, he never deluded himself into thinking that the acts themselves would bring him happiness. He could only be driven by the belief that it was worth it because others would, in the end, be happy, and really that was all he wanted. Whenever he'd been given a choice, he had indeed chosen kindness over everything else. Perhaps that was why Irisviel could see his kindness as his true nature, because it was what he would always choose when possible.

In truth, learning about the Holy Grail had made him believe not just in the idea that he could truly save the world without having to resort to such abhorrent means, but also…that he might save himself. Irisviel had assured him of that too. She believed him in. He wanted Ilya to believe in him too. But how could that be when she and Irisviel were at the same time the two people he loved most in the world and both born for the sole purpose of dying for the Grail, even if the Grail did not claim Ilyasviel's life?

Of course, all who were born were born to die one day. That was how life worked. In a way, that was part of what made killing people easy for him, what made it easy for him to turn off his feelings toward it when it was required of him. In the ideal world he wanted to create, people's happiness would be assured in that they could all look out for each other, that all would be kind to one another, that no one would feel the impulse to make another suffer for selfish reasons, or even unselfish reasons for that matter. No reason at all. In a perfect world, people wouldn't have to die in order to be kept from committing acts of evil.

But where he separated himself from others who might share his views and at the same time believe they were acting as agents of God, he had no delusions of grandeur for himself. He accepted the idea that he would probably die young the moment he picked up Shirley's gun and killed his father with it. It was just a feeling he'd had from that very moment. It was why it was all he could see for himself before when he initially began his pursuit of the Grail.

Yet Irisviel had laid out a future for him where he could be happy, and live a simple life raising Ilya, the child born of their love. The idea of giving birth to Ilya had given him hope that Irisviel's spirit would be carried on in her, and that when he died, he would find the soul he had given to his wife attached to that Grail, and rejoin her, at any cost, even if it meant he had to find a way to merge with the Grail as well, or better yet, retrieve her soul from it. But if there was still a predetermined death that his Ilya had to be tied to even when he had guaranteed that the burden of a Fifth War would be lifted from her shoulders….

He felt again his heart break as it had the day Natalia died. He was reminded that no matter how many times it happened, he couldn't help loving people, and even when he accepted that his way of life forced him to lose the ones he loved, it was something that would always break him. He would believe at the time that there could be no greater pain than what he felt then, but again he was proven wrong, as he kicked and kicked again and again at the writing desk chair, kicked it repeatedly into the wall so that it started to gouge out dents in it.

"Why?!" he shrieked, possessed beyond reason by his demons of anger and grief. "Why did this all fall on me, just because I wanted a world where everyone was happy?! Why do I have to give up what makes me happy in exchange?! Haven't I lost enough?!"

Before he could stop, his cries grew louder and louder.

"ISN'T GOD OR WHOEVER THE HELL PULLS THE DAMN STRINGS SATISFIED?! HE WON'T BE HAPPY UNTIL HE SNATCHES AWAY NOT JUST THE WOMAN I LOVE, BUT MY ONLY CHILD TOO?! WHY DAMN IT, WHY?!"

Overwhelmed, he fell to his knees, unable to take his fury out on the chair anymore, letting out another howl of pain as he did on that accursed boat, as he did when he first showed Irisviel that he had tears to shed. It was only when he paused to catch his breath that he became aware once more of the present, aware of Ilya's cries, and aware that Irisviel was sobbing like her heart was being wrenched.

Looking around, the tears flowed freely down his face as he gaped at Irisiviel, collapsed on the floor, hugging the wailing Ilyasviel to her so gently yet so fiercely, her red eyes regarding him with nothing but glittering, empathetic pain.

"Oh Kiritsugu…." Irisviel shook her head, pressed her cheek against Ilya's. "I'm so sorry…I'm so sorry…please forgive me…."

"Forgive…you…?"

"I never wanted this for you…this isn't why I wanted to give birth to Ilya, you know that…I only wanted to give you a future, a part of myself that could live on with you…that you could live for…and…my love, I'm so, so sorry…."

"Iri…."

Kiritsugu shut his eyes, overcome again with guilt that he had put so much on her, when she had enough to carry on her own—for no matter how long he could be with her, when her time to die came, she would have to walk that path without him by her side, and he knew that as strongly as she felt about him and what he was fighting for, it still scared her some, because of what he had taught her about life, about love and happiness.

But then he heard his wife whisper soothing words to the upset Ilya, even through her own tears, and somehow he found it in himself to open his eyes to it all again. Drawing the back of his sleeve across his face, he felt his strength return, in the way that only Irisviel could return it to him. Though he managed to get to his feet, when he reached his wife across the floor he could only sink to his knees again beside her and gather her to him.

He felt her response at once, felt her cling to him with one arm, felt her regain her own strength in it. Humbly and apologetically, he reached up and cupped the crown of Ilya's soft, silver head in his palm, adding his own murmured reassurances to Irisviel's. And their soft voices to their daughter together brought an end to the infantine wails, until nothing could be heard in the warm room but their own hiccups as the last of their tears fell away.

And then Kiritsugu said, "It's all right now. There's nothing you have to be sorry for. Didn't I already tell you that? It will always be me…who's at fault."

"But Kiritsugu…."

"I've hurt you again. I've hurt you both. That isn't what I wanted for you. Forgive me."

"You idiot," Irisviel practically growled with irritation. "You never have to ask me for forgiveness. Nor Ilya. I thought I made that clear."

At last Irisviel lifted her head, and she and Kiritsugu looked at each other. And then, before either of them knew it, they were laughing. The tears sprang back, but thankfully they were tears of utter joy in each other. They touched their heads together, both of them holding the calmed Ilya close, and when they both observed how their daughter now had almost a look of confusion on her small face, they laughed even harder.

"Oh, baby girl, you might be more trouble than we bargained for," Irisviel sighed affectionately. "But it's trouble that's more than worth it. I already know that much."

And all at once, Kiritsugu could feel the incandescence of true happiness flood him so brilliantly he could scarcely breathe. He felt his smile grow so wide it hurt, but he didn't care. He nuzzled Irisviel's hair, the scent of irises filling his head as he held his little family together in his arms.

"We'll make it through this. I promise, Iri, I'll take care of everything. You and Ilya will want for nothing, for as long as I'm with the both of you, for as long as I can still do that much for you."

"I know, Kiritsugu, I know."

Against his will he felt himself tremble uncontrollably, but he did nothing to try and stop it. How could he? How could he handle it any other way, except to turn it into more laughter? And because of this, Irisviel could laugh again too, and the thought that there would come a day when they would hear a laugh bubble out of their beloved little Ilya was enough to make them both strong for each other again.

That was probably why, at last, Ilya finally realized that everything would be okay, and knew that it was safe for her to close her small crimson eyes and go back to sleep in her mother's arms, while her father watched over them both.