Chapter Eighteen

A Mother's Soul

A day or two after Ilya tripped, Kiritsugu inspected her leg and deemed her fit enough to play outside again. In truth, she probably was well enough in half a day, but he couldn't help his overprotectiveness where his daughter was concerned. However, like him, she too had a restless disposition that didn't sit well with the invalid's lifestyle. She was easily bored by inactivity, and was never content to lay about doing nothing—so long as it was something she enjoyed doing, of course.

Eager to learn something new, now that she could go out again, she begged her father once more if he would teach her ice-skating same as her mother.

"Please, Kiritsugu!" she implored shortly after he'd arrived for lunch, tugging eagerly on his trouser legs, dancing on the spot with impatience.

Kiritsugu sized Ilyasviel up a moment, and considered that she did seem to have grown a little taller. Though she was still tiny, even for a five-year old. He shared a glance with Irisviel as she sipped on her noontide tea.

Irisviel bit her lip, appearing torn between granting her daughter's wish and not wanting to see her daughter get inevitably hurt, as Irisviel herself had done on numerous occasions learning how to ice-skate. But then it seemed to occur to her that she was doing her child a disservice thinking about it this way.

"Only if your mother says it's all right," Kiritsugu finally told Ilya.

Ilya immediately appealed to her mother, hopping up into her lap, wearing that eager smile of hers. Eager because she knew she'd already won. "Please, Mama? Ilya's more than strong enough!"

Irisviel set aside her tea and wrapped her arms around Ilya's middle, holding her at arm's length, giving her that tender, maternal smile that never faded in its warmth and brightness. "Very well, my love. You have your heart set on this, so I won't stop you." And she couldn't help a smile when Ilya embraced her in gratitude.

"Oh thank you, Mama! Thank you!" And then she kissed her mother sweetly on the cheek before sliding off of her lap and skipping off to fetch her coat, hat, and boots in preparation for playing outside that afternoon.

Irisviel picked up her tea again, lifting her eyes to her husband. Kiritsugu sighed and shook his head as he took a seat across from her.

"Looks as though I'll need to place an order for skates her size." Leaning his cheek on his knuckles, Kiritsugu added, not without a caress of affection in his tone, "I might as well have said yes when I left it up to you. And she knows that. She knows that her mother could never stand to say no to her for very long. Not over something she's wanted for a while now."

Now it was Irisviel's turn to sigh, as she contemplated the library window, dripping with new-melting icicles. "Is that a good thing? Am I doing right by her as a mother like this?"

"She knows not to cross you though either. You've developed very well in that regard too." Kiritsugu paused, considering the woman he adored so dearly. "I think she very much aspires to be just like you. When it comes to you…her mother…she understands the brighter side of the bond between you two, without actually understanding it. Who does she always beg for a story or a song? Whose lap does she always fall asleep in when she gets that wish? You're the woman she dreams of being someday."

Irisviel looked over at him. "You think so?"

Kiritsugu nodded. "I know so. And I'm glad for it. She should be more like you…and less like me…." Despite his efforts, he couldn't help an edge of despondency.

But his wife set aside her tea again and reached for his hand with both of hers. "She can have the best of both of us. That would be the greatest thing."

At this, Kiritsugu did manage a smile, and didn't break his gaze with Irisviel as he returned her hand-squeeze gently.

The skates for Ilya arrived in short time, and Ilya was more than eager to take them out for a spin. However, her first actual test run of them proved to have far less spinning and far more just struggling to hold herself upright when she wasn't making attempts at shuffling awkwardly across the ice.

Luckily, Kiritsugu and Irisviel were there to hold her by the hand and guide her between them, and Ilya, for her part, caught on quickly. It was like she was learning to walk all over again. But there was that determined expression on her face, and she looked between her mother and her father, and they both nodded encouragement, urging her further. And it was a testament to the place Ilya had found beside her mother in Kiritsugu's heart in the way the corners of his mouth twitched softly into a smile as her toddling valiantly across the ice fondly likened her to a purple penguin.

At Ilya's umpteenth stumble, Irisviel tried a hand at guiding her daughter with a different approach, in giving her a goal to strive towards.

"Try this Ilya," she suggested, breaking off on her own so Ilya had to clutch Kiritsugu's hand with both of hers. "Like those ballet dancers in that video Daddy brought us. Be like the water, move like it, but push through like the wind, and pump your legs. It's all about the grace of a lady!"

Ilyasviel watched with great awe as her mother swept out on the ice in a wide, gentle arc, arms out wide...like a swan taking flight.

"Wow...Mama..." Ilya breathed. She looked up at her father. "Mother's really amazing, isn't she?"

Kiritsugu nodded. "Indeed she is."

"Is that why Kiritsugu loves her so much?"

"Yes, it is."

It was rather as simple as that, in the end.

Irisviel had come to a spinning stop, and, facing her husband and daughter from where she stood in the middle of the frozen lake, arms still spread out wide, she called brightly: "Go for it, Ilya!"

Ilya grinned up at her father and said, "Okay, here I go," and released Kiritsugu's hand.

"Okay." While he kept a cautionary closeness, Kiritsugu watched, not without a swell of happy pride, as Ilya, doing all within her power to mimic her mother's grace and poise, did her best to start forward on her own again on the ice.

She did everything from hold her head high, straighten her back, and fling out her arms in as swan-like a manner as she could muster. And though it was at a snail's pace, and Kiritsugu held his breath complete with a knot in his stomach the whole time, Ilya made it all the way to Irisviel without falling. With a laugh of triumph she fell into mother's waiting arms, Irisviel laughing with her as she hugged her to her and praised her for her efforts.

Kiritsugu added his own praise as he skated over to join them.

"See, Kiritsugu? Ilya did it!"

"And I'm very proud of my little girl!" Kiritsugu scooped his daughter up easily into his arms—she was still so light after all—and they nuzzled cold noses together.

In the weeks that followed, Ilyasviel kept at it, and Kiritsugu was often drawn to the window in his office—which had a view of the lake—to watch Ilya and her mother on the ice while on the phone with Maiya concerning Grail War business. As with every endeavor she pursued, Ilya progressed rather quickly, and soon she could do nearly everything her mother could, if a little more roughly. In moments when talk of the coming War threatened to stir the dark beast of cold despair in Kiritsugu, seeing his wife and daughter so happy together brought a lightness and peace to his soul such as he couldn't have fathomed, but was no less grateful for.

But the nightmares about Ilya shedding blood continued to haunt him now and then, as though trying to tell him that for this reason alone he had no right to be happy like this. For his part, he could keep this from his wife, but worse still was when Irisviel began to have the exact same nightmares.

It started when he was having another one himself, only to be awakened by Irisviel weeping beside him like her own heart was being ripped out of her chest just as Ilya's clearly had been in the dream.

"Iri?"

"Oh...Kiritsugu...I'm sorry...did I wake you?" Irisviel hiccupped, sounding like she had a bad head cold.

"No, of course not." Kiritsugu reached for her as she huddled into her pillow.

"Liar," Irisviel half-heartedly accused, but let her husband pull her shaking form into his arms. In fact, Kiritsugu couldn't recall a time when Irisviel was ever shaking like this.

He stroked the curve of her back as she let out a whole torrent of sobs, and the sounds tore at his own heart.

"What happened?" he asked her hoarsely.

"Such a horrible dream," Irisviel whimpered, clinging to him. "Ilya...oh Ilya...sweet Ilya...there was so much blood..." She gave one choked sob after another. "I couldn't...I couldn't save her...my baby..."

Kiritsugu held his wife tighter. No further explanation was needed, except that if one such as Irisviel was having the same dream as he had had in times past, as he'd relived horribly tonight, did that confirm that such a possibility was woven into Ilya's fate? They were both linked to Lord Justeaze, the original Vessel for the Grail, after all.

Kiritsugu could hardly bear it if that were the case, much less that his only daughter's life was so surrounded by death...from the moment she'd been born.

"She's a life I carried inside me," Irisviel moaned. "I fed and held and nurtured that life...I can't let anything happen to her..." Suddenly she blinked up at her husband with desperate, tearful eyes such as he had never seen on her before. "Kiritsugu, promise me you won't let that happen. You have to promise me...no matter what..." Her voice was lost in more heart-wrenching sobs.

"I promise, Iri," Kiritsugu told her, barely managing to keep a crack out of his voice. "There's nothing I won't do to keep her from that fate..." But even as he said this, he couldn't help harboring doubts. After all, it seemed that everything and everyone he touched in his life ended up cursed.

However, while the uncertainty of Ilya's true life span remained so, in this endeavor at least, Kiritsugu would confront it with the same deadly focus with which he confronted his goal of saving the world.

Only then do I have any right to truly claim her as my daughter.

He kissed the top of Irisviel's silver head as she went on weeping, rubbing her back until her tears were utterly spent. Seeing her like this had been equally difficult for Kiritsugu to bear.

Just when the night grew quiet again though, they heard a dreadful shriek from Ilyasviel's room, and both of them bolted up in bed just as the connecting door flew open and Ilyasviel herself burst inside at a frightened sprint.

"MAMA!"

Irisviel more than eagerly caught her terrified daughter to her, murmuring reassurances as the child sobbed into her shoulder, moaning about her own frightening dreams about Lord Justeaze.

"It's all right now, Ilya," Irisviel told her, struggling to keep more tears out of her own voice. "Mama's here now."

"Can I sleep with you and Kiritsugu the rest of the night? Please?" Ilya begged.

Irisviel looked at Kiritsugu, but Kiritsugu didn't even have to give it any thought.

"Of course you can, Ilya." Kiritsugu stroked back his daughter's hair, feeling with some trepidation how she trembled like a frightened little rabbit.

Ilya looked up at him with her glittering red eyes as she had her head laid in her mother's lap, and said with sincere relief: "Thank you, Kiritsugu."

Irisviel, for her part, cast Kiritsugu a secret smile of gratitude as the three of them settled in together underneath the blankets. And within moments, Ilya was sound asleep in the arms of her gentle mother, curled up between her and her father.

Irisviel laid a kiss on her sleeping daughter's head. "So much for no nightmares."

"Well, all we can do is try and make her happy when she's awake." Kiritsugu stroked the inside of Ilya's tiny hand with his index finger, careful not to wake her.

"Yes. You're right." Irisviel considered him a moment, her expression pierced with love. "You're so good to her."

Kiritsugu found he couldn't speak for the sudden tightness in his throat at her words. Ilya meanwhile subconsciously closed her tiny fingers around his big one, and in that moment he thought his heart would break altogether.

But Irisviel, in her own way, understood and said nothing, only watched him with her tender, admiring gaze. Kiritsugu watched over them both, whispering urgently for his wife to try and sleep again, and she soon drifted off, with thankfully a look of peace on her face. And the little family at last had some well-deserved solace until daybreak.

At breakfast later on, Kiritsugu was glad to see smiles on his wife's and daughter's faces, and Ilya for her part bounced happily about after a plate of fruit and eagerly asked her father if she could try a taste of his coffee.

"I'm not so sure you'll like it," he chuckled. "It's not sweet. Your daddy drinks it plain, black, and bitter. No milk or sugar like Mommy's tea." He caught Irisviel hiding a smile behind her teacup and grinned.

"Ilya still wants to try it," his daughter insisted, not to be dissuaded.

Kiritsugu gave a defeated shrug. "Very well." He took his cup off its ornate china saucer and tipped a centimeter of coffee into the little circle in the center.

"No more?" Ilya was clearly disappointed.

"Try that first."

"Okay."

Kiritsugu and Irisviel watched as Ilya sipped the bit of coffee right off of the saucer, smacked her lips, and then proclaimed, "Blecch," pulling a disgusted face.

Irisviel smothered a giggle in her tea, no doubt remembering she had a similar reaction when she gave Kiritsugu's coffee a try. Kiritsugu easily hid his laughter too, but he certainly wanted very much to let it out.

"How can you drink that stuff, Kiritsugu?" Ilya asked, pushing the saucer away gingerly, as though it might infect her with its bitter flavor.

"It helps Daddy wake up a bit. When you grow up, that becomes more important than taste."

"Well, I think that's silly."

"You probably have a point," Kiritsugu conceded amusedly.

And considering how bad things had been lately, Kiritsugu had another gift day that week, coincidentally having the epiphany that his daughter was now six years old all of a sudden, and on top of that, in need of new clothes, and he felt a new stuffed animal was in order too. Ilya had already amassed a large family of plush toys from her father, and in many ways it made Kiritsugu a little sad that she couldn't have real friends other than her toys, but he was striving for a future for her where he could make it so she could have living friends that she could play with. Irisviel too was gifted with some luxurious bath accessories she was eager to try out after having such horrid sleeps, and the day following that, all three of them spent the entire day together out on the icy lake.

Ilya, for her part, was nearly a natural at ice-skating, and much like Kiritsugu when he'd been a young boy, she herself had developed a bit of a taste for showing off.

"Mama! Kiritsugu! Lookee what Ilya can do!" she crowed, spinning like a ballerina on the ice.

Irisviel and Kiritsugu both clapped at their daughter's efforts, but then Kiritsugu offered something of a counter.

"Watch this, Ilya!" And he pulled Irisviel towards him into a kind of slow, spinning waltz on the ice that ended with him giving his wife a little dip, to which she offered him a kiss as a reward for his so well-entertaining her.

Ilya expressed awe in her parents until the kissing, whereupon she switched to giggling behind her hands.

"Hey! Lovebirds!" she called in teasing tones, at which Kiritsugu and Irisviel both just laughed between themselves as they straightened up.

"Okay, we'll stop!" Irisviel promised.

"For now," Kiritsugu added rather slyly.

"Watch me do a figure-eight!" Ilyasviel announced, pleased to have the attention back on her.

She performed the trick with her greatest grace yet, which perhaps set everything up for an even greater shock out of her and her parents both when, upon sticking the landing, as it were, the ice beneath her suddenly split open and the lake swallowed her up from below. Ilya only had time to give a yelp of surprise before she disappeared beneath the ice.

"Ilya!" Irisviel screamed.

Kiritsugu was already racing across the ice to the hole where his daughter was submerged, mindful of the surrounding patch of thin ice. After tearing off his coat, he practically plunged head-first into the icy water, and the moment he found the flailing Ilya underneath, he caught her under the arms and dragged her back out. Thankfully, Ilya still had enough air in her lungs she could cough out what water had gotten lodged in them, but turned pale and blue-lipped in almost an instant, shivering violently.

Then Irisviel reached them, calling Ilya's name in sheer panic. As she fell to her knees beside her supine daughter, Kiritsugu had torn off Ilya's wet clothes and wrapped her up in his warm dry coat. He didn't even feel how his own hair was frosting over and his whole upper body was turning colder from having it dunked in the water. He only knew he had to get his child warm.

Once he had Ilya wrapped up, he handed her to Irisviel as she sobbed, "Will she be okay?"

"She'll be fine, just hold her close to get her warm. I kept my coat dry, so she'll be okay until we can get her inside."

Irisviel held her desperately close indeed, rocking her and covering her with kisses.

Then Ilyasviel managed to blink open her eyes. Now she'd coughed up all the water in her lungs she could curl up in her mother's warm arms and her father's warm coat with nothing to fear.

"Kiritsugu saved Ilya," she murmured, beaming sleepily like it was the most wonderful thing in the world. "Just like Mother..." And then her eyes drifted closed again.

Irisviel sobbed harder, and Kiritsugu, overcome as the drowsy Ilya kept shivering, urged his wife to her feet, her coat the only other dry warm thing that could shield their daughter from cold.

Once they got Ilya inside, at Kiritsugu's mention of the word "hypothermia", the Einzbern maids took over warming her carefully as they slid her into fresh dry clothes. Irisviel put herself into the thick of it, while Kiritsugu acted as a supervisor to the situation, his eyes flicking between his pale daughter and the pinched, desperate look on his wife, who seemed unable to look at anyone else but her daughter.

Kiritsugu for his part, found himself only mildly concerned with his own condition. He saw to himself, insisting that his daughter was the priority. And soon he was warm enough in a fresh set of dry clothes for his liking so he could make sure Ilya would be all right.

Within an hour or so they finally had Ilyasviel warm enough to wrap her up in fresh warm blankets in her bed, and her parents stayed beside her until she opened her tiny eyes and murmured, "Hello, Mama." And then she found Kiritsugu standing vigil nearby. "Daddy..."

"Ilya," was all Kiritsugu could say as his wife burst into tears again, this time out of joyful relief.

But Ilya nodded off again after that, though she still wore a smile of serenity as she slept.

Kiritsugu sank down into the chair next to his wife's and put his arm around her, rubbing her shaking back. "It's all right, Iri. See how strong our Ilya is?"

"But I couldn't do anything!" Irisviel wept, straining to keep her voice low. "I could only stand there, frozen by my own terror." She blinked up at her husband. "You saved her. And I..." Overcome, she clutched a hold of Kiritsugu's shirt and buried her face in his shoulder.

Kiritsugu took her in both arms and held her while she cried. There was nothing more he could say or do that hadn't already been said. All he could do was let her cry it out.

And that was enough. Just something to untangle the riot of emotions inside Irisviel. With a gasp or two she regained control such that she could speak again.

"You know..." she hiccupped. "I think now I see...why you spent so long with a closed heart. There is great joy—I've known that thanks to you—but the pain is of equal measure. Enough to drive anyone insane. And you've lost so many people who were dear to you..."

"Yes," Kiritsugu croaked, "but...even so...it would seem I just can't help myself...in the end..." He gave a watery chuckle. "What do you think, Iri? Do you feel like it was worth it?"

Irisviel looked over at Ilya as the child stirred in her slumber, peaceful as could be. After some thought, she said, "From where I sit now, it is."

"That's too easy," Kiritsugu couldn't help challenging, for this he'd been asking himself for years without being able to answer. "Could you say it from a different perspective? Like...say I hadn't been able to save Ilya today...or any day...?"

This time he couldn't keep his voice from cracking. He had had discussions with Jubstacheit. They both had. They both knew what the Elder had in mind for Ilya should she be forced to assume her mother's place. The very thought of it made Kiritsugu sick, and more resolved to fight for Ilya's sake, to retrieve her at any cost, no matter what happened. After all, he knew that he was as much his daughter's hope for the future as she was his. Without him, there would be no one to protect her, save her, from the pain of her burden. He couldn't bear that. Not without giving into insanity first.

But then Irisviel said, "Yes. I think...even then...it would be worth it..."

And this time, Kiritsugu said, "Liar," and hugged his wife closer.

Wordlessly however, Irisviel returned the embrace, understanding, hugging him just as close as he took his turn weeping over so much tragedy born from so much love.

When Kiritsugu could speak again, he said, with great admiration, "You've grown so much as a mother, Iri. I'm glad that makes you happy."

Irisviel gave the watery chuckle this time. "Do you really think so? I'm not so sure…after all…."

"From the moment Ilya was born, you treasured her," Kiritsugu pointed out. "There are so many mothers in the world who've lived out their lives for years, caring so little for their own children."

"Yes, but, then…they're only human. And I don't suppose every woman who had a child took so well to being a mother. Being a mother is technically just the result of bearing offspring. A good mother is…different."

"You're a good mother. You've achieved far more in so short a time than some humans achieve in a lifetime. Certainly much more than any homunculus."

"Yes, that's true."

"And you do make a good point," Kiritsugu conceded, suddenly thinking of Natalia. "Motherhood doesn't come naturally to every woman who has a child. But some do the best they can. And you more than give it your best. It was…something you really wanted."

This time Irisviel's smile was truly happy. "Of course. Because it was with you. I looked at you, at your life, and thought of everything you had taught me from the beginning, and I realized that if I could give you a child, if I could become a mother, if I could have a true family that I could call my own, even just for a little while…well, because it was something I realized I wanted to share with the man I had come to love…I knew that it would make the tiny life I had been given one that would be irrevocably my own, and no one else's. Perhaps that was a bit selfish of me," she added, lowering her eyes.

"Well…love is somewhat selfish," admitted Kiritsugu. "Part of you wants someone you care about to be happy not only for their sakes, but because it makes you happy too. And…it can lead to a person abandoning others…in order to protect those precious to you alone…." He swallowed, having touched on the fact that the other reason he had worked so hard to close himself off from love was so that his decisions of who to save and who to kill would not be based on those feelings, but on logic alone.

But now….

Irisviel squeezed him though, as ever, as if she were reading his thoughts. "There'll be no need for that, once you have the Grail in hand. I'll see to it."

Ilya turned over in her sleep then, murmuring incoherently as she hugged her favorite stuffed toy lamb closer to her.

As Kiritsugu watched her, he said sadly to his wife, "If anyone was too selfish…Iri…it was me…."

"At least for now, we can be selfish together," Irisviel told him.

And for some reason, saying that was all it took for Kiritsugu to feel better again. Maybe just because of the mere fact that she had reminded him that in all of this, he wasn't entirely alone.

A couple of days of bedrest naturally had Ilya in fits of restlessness, as before when she'd hurt her leg. By the fourth day, she was well enough to not only occupy herself with her various, beautifully bound books, but to have gone through them all at least twice and be eager to get out of bed and play outside again.

Meanwhile, the first thing Kiritsugu did when he finished with his work for the day was visit his daughter and do his best to cheer her up. When he came in that day, she had one of her books propped open again on her stomach, but she gave a huge, dramatically heavy sigh of boredom and let the book fall flat on its spine.

"Kiritsugu, can't I please go out today? I really do feel so much better!"

Her father sat down on the edge of her bed and reached over, pushing back her silver bangs to feel her forehead. "Well, your fever's gone…."

"Exactly! Now quickly, while there's still daylight left!"

But Kiritsugu shook his head. "I think tomorrow we can give the all-clear. You feel well enough now, but now that you do, you want to give your body enough time just to rest and recover. Fighting an illness or injury can drain a lot of your energy, you have to have some time to recharge."

"Hrm…" Ilya grunted, crossing her arms. "I wasn't even sick."

"But you were hurt."

"I fell in the water and got really cold and then really hot, that's all! I'm better now!" Further illustrating her impatience, Ilya waved her tiny fists in the air.

Kiritsugu looked over at his daughter, and he couldn't help furrowing his brow at that memory of how she had fallen through the ice. She could have been taken away from them so quickly…it had been such a close call….

Picking up on her father having gone so strangely quiet, Ilya quit waving her fists and blinked at him, furrowing her own brow. "Daddy? What's wrong?"

"It's all right, Ilya," Kirtsugu assured her at once. "It's nothing you have to worry about."

Ilyasviel rather contritely started fiddling with a loose thread on her bedspread. "Does it have to do…with how much Mother was crying…?"

Kiritsugu's eyes widened, and he gave a little gasp of shock. And then he said, in a quieter voice, "You heard that, huh?"

"Yeah."

"Well, then I guess there's no point in telling you otherwise but…yes, it does. But it still isn't something you have to worry about. It's nothing you did wrong."

"Isn't it, though?"

"No, of course not." Kiritsugu reached over again and tucked the blankets a little more closely around Ilya's tiny body. "Your mother was just scared because something bad had happened to you, and that makes her sad, because she wants you to be happy and safe."

"Was Daddy scared too?" Ilya asked in a very small voice, withdrawing as if to sink underneath the blankets and hide.

"Yes," Kiritsugu told her unflinchingly. "But your mom and I were only scared for the same reason." He stroked back Ilya's hair again, this time in a comforting gesture. "From the moment you were born, Ilya, you've been very precious to us both. We know it can't always be so, but despite that, we both want nothing more than for you to always be happy. Or at least, we'll always keep trying to make that happen for you." He managed a true smile for her. "As long as you're happy, we're happy. Within reason, of course," he couldn't help adding with a little lean towards his more mischievous nature.

Ilya looked up at her father with something like wonder, and then she slid her arms up out from under her blankets and reached up to touch his rough face with her soft, tiny hands. And then at last she smiled, content and calm. She understood then without having to put it into words that everything her parents said to her and did for and with her was because they loved and cared for her, and for her, that was more than enough. No amount of toys and presents could equal that, much as she enjoyed receiving them. It wasn't the things themselves, but the joy she saw in her parents' faces when they gave them to her.

"I'm glad then," she finally said. "Because Ilya wants Mommy and Kiritsugu to be happy too." And then she hoisted herself up and gave Kiritsugu a kiss on the cheek, her tiny eyelashes tickling his skin almost like tiny butterfly wings.

Kiritsugu chuckled. "Thank you, Ilya."

Ilya settled herself back into her blankets, and Kiritsugu tucked her in again. Here she chose this moment to ask: "Then maybe…if I can go out tomorrow…you and me…we can play…the walnut game?"

"Of course we can," Kiritsugu promised at once with a grin.

"Good. Then prepare to be beaten," Ilya added with a mischievous grin of her own.

After Ilya had dozed off again, Kiritsugu quietly tiptoed out, and closing the door and entering his and Irisviel's room, he found his wife waiting for him, just having returned from her afternoon appointment with Acht. She rubbed her arm, as if she were trying to hide something Jubstacheit had done again that had caused her pain in the adjustment and Vessel maintenance process, but her smile for him said everything:

"This pain doesn't matter…because I'm doing it for someone I love…."

Kiritsugu returned her smile and took her into his arms, unspeaking as he stroked back her hair and let her find solace in his embrace. At least he could do that much for her. As had happened often between them, there was no need for words.

That's right, Iri. If anyone here is selfish…it certainly isn't you.