Chapter Twenty-One

Reveille

Coming back to the rushing buzz of the modern world was like waking up from a comatose sleep, such that Kiritsugu found himself blinking squintily every time he disembarked from a vehicle, from the taxi that took him to the airport in Frankfurt, to the plane that landed at the airport neighboring Fuyuki, to the train that pulled into the city. Yet even as he experienced this feeling, he moved through the crowds upon crowds of people as though he were still in a dream. It was a strange, dualistic feeling that impressed upon him both the surreal quality of his existence, and the sense that he moved through the world as though he were a component of a dimension separate and parallel from that of what was around him.

Even so, upon stepping onto the train platform under the cloak of night, and breathing in the air, he felt a sense of comfort descend upon him too. As if nothing had changed since the last time he was in Japan, he very easily made a beeline for the nearest cigarette machine, and after feeding it a little yen, selected the brand he had missed since running out in Germany, and leaning against a pillar isolated from the general hubbub of the station in a designated smoking area, he lit up the first cigarette he'd had in over eight years. Ironically, inhaling the sparked taste that flowed into his lungs was like a breath of fresh air in its way. He exhaled it and felt for just one happy moment that all his cares floated away with that puff of smoke on the winter breeze. He closed his eyes and let that sink in for a bit before jerking back to life and tapping off some ash and taking another drag.

After he finished that lovely cigarette, he extinguished the stub on the pillar and then flicked it into the nearest receptacle. Making his way out of the station, sliding once again through the crowd, this time as smoothly as liquid, he whipped out his mobile phone and dialed Maiya at the hotel on their secure line.

"You're on your way?" she answered, knowing it was him.

"I am. Is everything ready?"

"Yes. But I thought where checking the equipment was concerned, you'd like to do the honors."

"Indeed. It's been a while, after all. I'll need to acclimate myself with it again. Very well. And the room is secure?"

"Yes. It's all set up."

"Good. And you have a surveillance feed going?"

"I've wired it to the television under detection of the hotel. I have hidden cameras on the Tohsaka residence, as well as the Hyatt hotel where Kayneth Archibald is staying."

"All right. That should do for now. In that case, hold down the fort until I arrive. I should be there at about ten tomorrow morning, after I've done my personal perimeter check on the city. Covering Shinto and Miyama'll take all night."

"Understood. I'll be waiting."

The both of them clicked off their phones, already working in sync as before, in those dark grey days before Irisviel's light pierced through.

No. He couldn't let his mind wander to thoughts of her or Ilya right now. Otherwise, right then and there he would again lose the strength in his legs to keep moving forward.

At the hotel on the door of room 73, Kiritsugu knocked according to the pattern he and Maiya had agreed upon. When Maiya admitted him, again, it was as if nothing had changed. Or at least, Kiritsugu felt that way when he saw her after so many years. Though the last time, Maiya had clearly noticed a change in him. But she tactfully didn't bring it up, acting as she always did with him. Cold and professional. Even in those times when they'd slept together.

But that couldn't even bear thinking at this point.

"I've been told that Madam Irisviel and Saber have just arrived this morning," Maiya told him, closing the door.

"Hm." Though Kiritsugu knew he'd instructed for them to take the Mercedes immediately to the castle of the Einzberns tucked away on the outskirts of Fuyuki, so Irisviel could rest after such a long journey, he had a feeling that his wife would be far too excited seeing Japan for the first and last time in her life to want to do anything like sleep. He could see her now, looking out of the car window, mouth agape in shining wonder, her red eyes sparkling with delight to see so many new things all at once.

Again, he shoved this out of his mind.

In any case, Maiya already had something to report to him concerning the inception the Fourth Holy Grail War. According to the surveillance feed she showed him as per her having wired the television clandestinely to it, it appeared that one Servant had already been killed. The video itself displayed a shining being of dazzling gold taking down a dark, masked figure that had clearly been trying for a sneak attack on the Tohsaka Estate. This had apparently occurred last night while Kiritsugu had been scouting the city. At the time, he'd had been clear on the other side in Shinto, but even so, the explosiveness of this masked Servant's death seemed such that he felt he ought to have somehow sensed it.

According to Maiya's investigation of the incident, the golden Servant that had wrought its demolishing wrath upon the intruder was obviously Tokiomi Tohsaka's Servant then. And most likely an Archer by the simple fact that he threw a myriad of swords he could draw out from a kind of array of golden portals floating behind him, rather like arrows. The defeated Servant on the other hand, was Assassin, the Servant of none of other than Kirei Kotomine.

Just hearing Maiya say that name gave Kiritsugu an inward chill up his spine. And when Maiya further mentioned that Kotomine had immediately sought refuge at the Fuyuki Church, where his father, Risei, the overseer of the Grail War, resided, Kiritsugu immediately acted on his need to defend against Kotomine and told Maiya to send a familiar with another camera out to spy on the Church, adding that she should place it just outside the perimeter of neutrality.

"Understood." Maiya inclined her head as Kiritsugu immediately turned to the arsenal spread out on one of the hotel room's beds.

And even though Kiritsugu hadn't had a wink of sleep since arriving, it was amazing how easily too he'd managed to slip back into his habit of being able to stay awake and alert for forty-plus hours.

Though one could argue that he'd been resting for the past nine years.

Now his dark eyes traced every edge and shine of gun metal as they looked over the weapons on the bed. A reunion of a man and his tools of underhanded slaughter.

Thankfully, Maiya was the only other person here, and with her, he felt easier in his skin when it came to anyone observing him around such equipment. She was the only person who could watch him while he checked the specs and made his plans without judging him, not because she didn't have a mind of her own, but because her life had begun with such things forced upon her, so when Kiritsugu came along, she was able to accept them, as she had learned to accept, as he had done, the cruelty of the world.

She was also the only person, apart from himself, he'd trust with his weaponry. He knew that even as he was about to make his examination, all of the equipment would be up to scratch and fully prepared for immediate use if necessary.

The cold, dark beast that had slumbered so long within him stirred as it had the night he'd killed Malte von Einzbern. As he picked up each weapon, and gave it his careful attention in inspecting it for himself, that beast slithered ever closer to the surface. At first, when he picked up one of the M1911 semi-automatic pistols, he did feel his hands start to shake, just a little. But with each subsequent piece of weaponry or equipment he picked up, he grew less and less tense. Part of that was the doing of Maiya's presence as well.

His path toward tranquility reached a road bump briefly though when he hefted the Walther WA2000 semiautomatic sniper rifle. The weight of it jarred him because it made him realize that it was, in fact, heavier than his eight-year old daughter.

But then his eyes flicked to Maiya observing him like an indifferent, straight-backed cat, and he was able to press on as before, and checked the smoothness of the breechblock and the weight of the trigger, making sure it was in the best condition.

"There's no correction up to five hundred meters," Maiya inserted. "Do you want to check it?"

"No," said Kiritsugu, peering with one eye open and the other squeezed shut through the AN/PVS04 night vision scope. "It's fine. I trust your preparations for it. Besides, with Japan's strict laws, it'll be too difficult and a wasted effort if we just end up getting caught."

Then from the Steyr AUG assault rifle, which would be for Maiya's use, to the Calico M950 submachine gun to serve as a reserve side arm, and then all the personal hand grenades, smoke grenades, and C2 plastic explosive.

All in order. All here, brand new, and state-of-the-art, the best in the world, thanks to the generosity of the Einzbern family.

And then Kiritsugu asked, "And the special item?"

"Here." Maiya carefully took out a beautiful rosewood case from the bottom of the room's closet.

Setting it rather reverently on the space leftover on the bed, Kiritsugu flicked open the clasps and lifted the lid, revealing the slumbering weapon inside, unique unto itself, and for his use, and his use alone.

The Thompson Contender.

That which he used with favor on many a battlefield in times past, the only weapon that could take his equally unique origin rounds, containing his Mystic Code of "cutting and tying".

He hesitated, just a moment, his palms sweating a little again, before he took the revered and, quite frankly, beautifully crafted Contender in one hand, pulled the spool of the break-open, single-barrel cartridge chamber with his index finger, loaded one of his origin rounds—.30-06 Springfield bullets actually, ordinary only to the naked eye—and then closed the barrel again with a snap of his wrist.

Smooth as silk.

He repeated the action again, this time in the instance of dispensing what would be, in the heat of battle, an empty shell and replacing a new one. But as he did so, his hand, familiar as before with the gun, as though it had never left him really, became aware of something and started to go clammy again. And then the shine of the gloomy light of the room on the sleek walnut of the gun made him think of Ilya again, and before he could stop himself, he considered the way his hands worked so mechanically, so unlike they had done for the past nine years, when he had used them to give Irisviel and their daughter all the love he could for them. Nothing but touches of love and tenderness, not death.

In the end, since it seemed that he hadn't forgotten the feel of a gun—this one in particular—in his hands, surely…he would be able to recall how soft Irisviel's skin had felt he'd touched her so affectionately, when all this was over? Surely, he would be able to return to his daughter, and Ilya would laugh, and it wouldn't be strange for him to feel her in his arms again, to take those small hands in his and squeeze them tight, to hold her close once more?

Surely…?

All this within the span of two seconds he spent unloading and reloading the Contender.

Damn. A whole two seconds?

"I've gotten rusty."

"Indeed."

Without looking at Maiya, Kiritsugu placed the Contender carefully back in its case. Kneeling, he picked up the first round he'd loaded from off of the floor, and replaced that in the case with the other rounds. Shutting the case, a terrible, painful ache grew in his heart. The ache of the husband and father he had become without meaning to.

Softly, he murmured, unable to help himself in his oncoming sense of sorrow, "You know…Ilya…she weighs a lot less…than that Walther…. She's already…eight years old…."

He was teetering on an edge, and once he let himself fall off into the void, he would crash to the floor below and shatter.

But then Maiya, unspeaking, caught him from behind, held him back from that edge. In a transitory daze brought on by this gesture, this touch, he followed her, turned at her beckoning, let her pull him lithely to his feet. Yet even as he could feel nothing still but his painful longing for Irisviel and Ilya, for what he would lose and what he risked to lose, as he gazed into Maiya's eyes with dark, empty ones, he felt a kind of relief wash over him as she leaned up and brushed her lips against his.

They had never kissed before. He had told Irisviel that. He had told her that to him, the kiss was something sacred, something different from any sexual act. The sealing of a pact between two people who loved each other dearly. That was not how it was between him and Maiya.

Yet when she did this, he felt himself come back to that cold beast he had learned to be. Perhaps it was because in doing this, he now had the strength to steel himself for his final betrayal towards his wife, when he would sacrifice her life to the Holy Grail to make his wish come true for the world. By betraying her in this way first, he had removed the possibility of being dissuaded from anything merely from the weakness of sentiment.

Maiya…had done this for him.

Taking his face in her hands, she said, "Focus only on what's important. Think of nothing else."

So…this is how you've really felt about me, isn't it, Maiya?

Even so, he remained quite still even as he let her wrap her arms around his neck and kiss him again, letting her do as she pleased, just for this once. Yet he did feel compelled to speak, as a memory of him and Natalia bubbled to the surface of his mind.

"Okay, kid, if that's what you want, then fine: I'll take you on as an apprentice. But don't think for a second that this means I'll always be able to shield you. This is dangerous work, this isn't some spy game in the backyard. In the end you could just end up dead in some ditch in some backwater foreign country."

And young Kiritsugu, swallowing and doing his best to shed any sense of still being a kid, had replied, with an obsidian shine to his eyes, "I don't care. If I can use what I learn from you to help people, that's all that matters."

"Maiya…?" he muttered against her lips as she kissed him again, delicate and poised.

"Yes…?"

"You aren't ever afraid, are you? Of dying?"

Maiya withdrew and looked at him again as she considered his question. And then she looked away. "That's a rather stupid question to ask me…Kiritsugu." She turned away, suddenly busying herself with the surveillance feed on the television.

Kiritsugu kept the smile he gave her to himself, letting it vanish when she turned back to him, all business again. Touched a nerve, did I? I didn't realize you even had nerves I could touch…Maiya.

Kiritsugu closed his eyes as he let out an exhalation of smoke from his seventh cigarette in the last twenty-four hours. The five in between this one and the first one he'd puffed on after arriving immediately in Fuyuki having been chain smoked in the hotel room in Shinto. The seventh one he now smoked as he leaned against the pickup truck Maiya had rented out for them.

That was a close call. Too close.

It had started with Irisviel and Saber, coming from the beach, crossing paths with Lancer in the shipping yard. Kiritsugu's night vision scope had alighted on all three of them, and lingered just a moment longer on Irisviel, wearing her favorite coat and hat, and he had done his best not to think about the fact that he had had, in this moment, the barrel of a sniper rifle trained on the woman he loved.

Not long after Saber had shed her "street clothes" for her armor and she and Lancer had begun their battle, Lancer had struck Saber with one of the two lances he'd been carrying, one that cursed her left hand and rendered her ability to call forth her Noble Phantasm paralyzed. Kiritsugu, having found Lancer's Master, Lord Kayneth El-Melloi Archibald, standing in the shadows atop a shipping container across the way, had prepared to take him down, only to have Rider and his panicking boy of a Master barge in on things, swiftly followed by Archer, the golden warrior that had slain Assassin, and Berserker.

And as for Assassin, Kiritsugu and Maiya had in fact spotted him too, spying on the battle below just as they were. Which meant that Assassin's death had been staged, which meant that it was likely that Assassin's Master, Kirei Kotomine, was probably working with Tokiomi Tohsaka, the Master of Archer. And if that was the case, then given that Kotomine had taken refuge in Fuyuki Church, Kiritsugu could discern a triumvirate of manipulation—Kirei Kotomine, Tokiomi Tohsaka, and Father Risei Kotomine together.

That didn't sit well with Kiritsugu. And he took another drag on his cigarette with icy intensity, eager for the long-deprived-of nicotine to calm his rattling nerves.

After Archer had withdrawn, Berserker had turned on Saber, seemingly bent on annihilating her with the light pole he'd turned into his Noble Phantasm simply by touching it. Matters had worsened when Kayneth had ordered Lancer to help Berserker kill Saber, after Lancer had tried to come to her aid.

Kiritsugu had aimed his rifle again, prepared to fire a single shot that would snipe Kayneth in the head—

But then, quite unexpectedly, Rider, or Iskandar, King of Conquerors as he had been more than delighted to reveal to all and sundry, had intervened by trampling Berserker and forcing him to withdraw too. Then Kayneth withdrew Lancer when Rider proclaimed he would join forces with Saber against him, and shortly after that, Rider too had withdrawn, taking that boy Master of his, who had looked quite close to fainting to be honest, leaving Irisviel and Saber seemingly alone in the shipping yard.

Assassin too had vanished.

"Maiya…meet me down by the truck," Kiritsugu had ordered through the radio, staying only a moment to watch as his wife took Saber's hand in both of hers, clasping it tightly. Then Irisviel had looked up, and he wanted to believe that she could see him, or at least knew that she was looking his way.

Saber followed her gaze as she dematerialized her armor and powered down back to her black suit. And he'd had a sense that she, at once, could and could not see him. It had been strange, and those green eyes of hers were haunting him again all the way along his descent from above.

Maiya herself had already loaded her Steyr AUG assault rifle onto the pickup. After Kiritsugu handed her the Walther, he'd snagged that seventh cigarette of his out of the pack with his teeth and lit it up.

By now he was a sip or two from finishing it off.

Maiya was already strapping into the driver's seat. "What do you propose next?" she asked him, one hand on the steering wheel and the other on the stick shift.

Kiritsugu's mind was now working based on the immediate need to eradicate Lancer and his Master in order to restore to Saber the use of her left hand. He thought of the explosives packed in the back of the truck and concealed by a tarp.

"The Hyatt Hotel," he said, taking one last puff on the cigarette and then dropping it on the gravelly ground and grinding it into the stones with the toe of his black shoe.

"Where Kayneth is staying?"

"Precisely."

Kiritsugu hoisted himself up into the passenger's seat of the truck and shut the door.

"Are we assaulting him and Lancer head-on?" Maiya started up the engine and pulled onto the main road leading out of the shipping yard complex.

"Yes, but he won't see it coming."

"Oh?"

"Undoubtedly Kayneth's placed any number of spells and enchantments as traps to be set off by anyone who tries to attack him at the Hyatt. But that won't do him any good against an explosion."

"Then we're rigging the building with the C2."

"Yes."

"Understood."

A silence fell between the two assassins, filled only with the sound of the running engine and the rush of tires over asphalt. Then Kiritsugu glanced sidelong at his partner and couldn't help a pang at the way she hadn't even said something like, "And the other civilian guests staying at the Hyatt? What about them?" Or something like that.

Kiritsugu checked his watch. No. It would waste precious time, evacuating everyone else in the hotel first.

And yet…and yet….

"Daddy…when you and me finally get to go to Japan, just the two of us, you'll show Ilya the starbugs, right?"

The memory of his daughter asking him that intruded on his strategizing thoughts, that impression of her beaming face, looking up at him with her bright red eyes, looking up at him with undying faith in the good person she and her mother knew him to be.

There were probably lots of kids in that hotel, kids who probably took for granted the starry dance of fireflies over summer grass.

Sucking in a deep breath and then slowly exhaling, Kiritsugu broke the silence and said, "We'll need to evacuate the hotel first. Create some story that the building's dangerous and has to be destroyed immediately. But we'll make sure that Kayneth, his fiancée, and Lancer don't get out."

"Eh?" Maiya glanced at him quizzically, and then, remembering herself, gazed ahead at the road again. "Right."

And Kiritsugu knew that her confusion didn't come from the fact that he wanted to save the people of the hotel first. It was the fact that he was making a decision that the Kiritsugu she would remember from the days before his isolation at Einzbern Castle would never have even considered making.

After all, he would have thought: what were a few hundred dead hotel guests compared to the salvation of six billion people?

The Hyatt Hotel was devoured in mere moments by a rising cloud of fiery ash. Kiritsugu finished off and tossed away his eighth cigarette as he made his way back from the parking lot, whipping out his phone and dialing.

"Maiya."

"The target never even moved from its position."

"Good. There's no form of magic that could have withstood a blast like that, much less a human life."

And even if Lancer somehow survived, with his Master and the fiancée jointly supplying him with mana dead, unless he forms a pact with a new Master, he won't be long for this world either.

Then his ear picked up the sound of a crying child, a little girl, and his newly formed parental instincts caused him to look her way. The little girl was sobbing in the embrace of her patient, gentle, soothing mother, upset by so much violent destruction so close to her.

The thoughts he had of Irisviel and Ilya that he carried in his heart were reflected in that mother and child. He let out a low growl of frustration as he pushed that aside, irked and disturbed that he was letting his love for his wife and child interfere with his work, now of all times.

It was hard, because at once Irisviel and Ilya had become dearer to him than anyone else in the world, and yet at the same time it made it more difficult to be as cold and ruthless as he had once been. With Malte von Einzbern it had been easy, he had been fighting just for the sake of his family. But this….

Though reminding himself that this fight was in fact for Ilya's sake as well as the world's did help to loosen the painful knot in his chest a bit.

He turned away from the mother and daughter and spoke into the phone once more.

"Maiya," he began, only to have Maiya on the other end give a gasp followed by the line going dead.

For a second, Kiritsugu stopped breathing, trying hard not to think back to that horrible moment when he and Natalia had been talking over the radio on their last mission, right before everything had been shot to hell.

Fearing the worst, Kiritsugu gunned it for the last place he'd left his apprentice. Quickly putting the pieces together, from the sound of it she had probably been ambushed. Making his way up the scaffolding of the building-under-construction that was adjacent to the former Hyatt Hotel, while the lights of rescue helicopters flashed above the hubbub of the other crowded evacuees, he came across Maiya on an unfinished floor that was now below him. She was dodging a figure he couldn't make out for the shadows.

Unhesitating, he unpinned and tossed a smoke grenade from off of his person, and the resulting smoke concealed Maiya long enough for her to make her escape.

They met up at the truck, Maiya leaning against it just to catch her breath.

"What…happened…?" Kiritsugu asked her as he caught his breath too.

"Kirei…Kotomine…" Maiya panted.

Kiritsugu stiffened. "What?"

"He found the familiar I'd rigged with a camera outside Fuyuki Church…." And Maiya looked up at him with a rare flash of dread in her dark eyes. "He's…after you…Kiritsugu…."

Despite the destruction of the Hyatt, it was clear sometime in the aftermath that whether Kayneth had actually died couldn't entirely be confirmed. And if he was alive, doubtless he knew not only that it was Saber's Master who had launched the attack, and given Irisviel's distinct appearance, it only followed that his next move would be to try and launch a counterattack on the Einzbern Castle. After all, it was no secret to the oldest mage lineages familiar with Fuyuki and the Grail Wars that that castle was the property of the Einzbern family.

After carting their equipment from the hotel in the truck, Kiritsugu decided that he needed to recon with Irisviel. As they had discussed previously, their acting separately meant that a move like this was only to be employed in dire defense situations such as this, but if Kiritsugu were honest with himself, the restless stirrings deep inside him that echoed an underlying ache for his wife and daughter were intensifying, like a terrible soreness of his heart. After all, his heart was a muscle, and at the moment it was being pulled and used as it hadn't been in a very long time, and the trial of it was putting him under a true test of endurance.

What was all the more irritating was that Elder Acht's suspicions about the change in Kiritsugu were far more well-founded than Kiritsugu wanted to admit.

So he and Maiya arrived at the Einzbern Castle, where he was immediately greeted by the Einzbern maids who had accompanied them as Irisviel's attendants, Elke among them.

She bobbed him a curtsy as the others did. "Welcome, Master Kiritsugu."

"Elke, have Meike and Nele take Maiya to the conference room upstairs, she'll need to set up some equipment there." Kiritsugu nodded to Maiya and Maiya followed the two homunculi up the stairs from the grand atrium of the castle.

"Is there anything else you require, sir?" Elke asked as the three of them disappeared.

"Yes," said Kiritsugu, "where is Irisviel?"

"She's upstairs in one of the bedrooms, resting. She and Saber had rather a long day before tonight's battle, taking a walking tour of the city." Elke actually rolled her eyes at this, and she sounded just a little bit like she disapproved of something like a homunculus enjoying herself at doing anything.

"Ah," and Kiritsugu hid from Elke his affectionate smile for Irisviel's sake. "And Saber?"

"Standing watch outside Madam's room."

"Very well. Please inform her that I'm calling a meeting in the conference room once Irisviel wakes up."

"Yes, sir."

Shortly after arriving though, there came a notice from Father Risei the overseer calling a summons to all Masters, so Kiritsugu sent another one of their bat familiars to gather the intel. Apparently the overseer was calling a temporary ceasefire such that all Masters and Servants would concentrate on bringing down Caster, who was committing acts of child abduction and murder alongside his psychotic Master. The reward for the Master-Servant pair that defeated Caster would receive an additional Command Seal.

Pure fodder for ambitious, self-important idiots like Kayneth undoubtedly was.

Irisviel didn't wake up until later that night, and when the four of them gathered in the golden, lamp-lit conference room, he could see that she'd benefit from a little more rest, if only to cure the effects of jet lag.

But she smiled for him, and maybe it was enough for her that she was seeing him again. Yet he could see too without having to ask that her long flight from Frankfurt was not the only thing that was causing some wear on her already. After all, he knew that she had had to say her own goodbye to their daughter since they last saw each other, and in this, he more than empathized with her.

Saber meanwhile, classily subordinate in her dark suit, took a position standing at attention just behind Irisviel as she and Kiritsugu dived into looking over the various maps he'd had Maiya spread out on the long table. Maiya, for her part, stood at attention just a little behind him. It was a rather telling division between the four of them, as it soon became more obvious after Kiritsugu and Irisviel had exchanged what information they had both gathered.

According to Irisviel, who, being the Grail Vessel, could sense certain things about other Servants, like their approach and whether or not they had been eliminated, she did not in fact sense any kind of absence of Lancer. Which confirmed Kiritsugu's fears that Kayneth and his fiancée had probably found a way to survive that hotel explosion.

"So we should probably launch another attack on Lancer," Irisviel suggested. "After all, until he's defeated, there's nothing else we can do about the curse on Saber's left hand."

"No," said Kiritsugu at once. "I have a feeling Kayneth and Lancer will come to us to deal with Saber. That being said, our best chance of success is to lure them into a sneak attack."

Out of the corner of his eye, he noticed Saber clench her fists, but was relieved that she at least kept her mouth shut. Even if she did have to bite down hard on her bottom lip to do so, and it was clear that she was concealing a glare from him in her jade green eyes.

Kiritsugu went on as if nothing was amiss. "Now, on the way to the castle from the shipping yard, did you come across anything untoward?"

"We did. We came across Caster, who seemed to be under the delusion that our Saber's true identity was that of Jeanne d'Arc, the heroine of medieval France. He revealed his own true identity as that of Baron Gilles de Rais, one guilty in his own time of butchering countless women and children."

"Ah? And here I have it that the Church has issued a temporary ceasefire as to have all other Masters and Servants hunt down Caster and his Master. Offering a Command Seal as a reward for the Servant-Master pair that defeats them, naturally."

Caster, as well as the Master that had somehow summoned him, were both acting quite outside the realm of the War and were acting like nothing but deranged psychopaths, completely uninterested in the mechanics of the War and simply feeding their impulsive need for gory mischief.

For Kiritsugu, bearing witness to the suffering of children was nothing new. But he had returned to the world as a man who had had a child of his own now. A child he had cradled tenderly in his arms from since she was a newborn. As thoughts of Ilya pressed in upon him again, it was all he could do to close off his heart to new whispers that begged him to take action openly against Caster for the atrocities he and his Master were committing.

Yet this manhunt for Caster and his Master did provide them with an opportunity, combined with this apparent fixation Caster had on their Saber.

"Caster will come to us too, then, seeking out Saber. If we let him do that, it would provide for the probability that other Masters and Servants will flock to us…not just Kayneth, who's no doubt taking the bait of the additional Command Seal on top of everything else…and in that case, all I would need do is attack from the flank…and take all of them out, one by one."

"Master…" Saber suddenly growled in a low, admittedly dangerous voice, unable to hold her tongue any longer. "I cannot approve of this." At last she raised that glare she'd been trying to conceal from him, that glare of spitting jade fire. "For you to condone and employ such underhanded methods…it is an insult to Heroic Spirits. A nobler course of action would be to confront our enemies with dignity, particularly where someone as undignified as Caster is concerned! At the very least so that we might prevent the deaths of more innocent children…." Her voice tailed away as she clearly became overcome by her own passions, that desire for justice that burned bright as a star within her, a light that Kiritsugu himself had once known, yet had lost the ability to trust.

"Why do you not allow me to go out and fight? Could it be that you do not trust me, your own Servant?!"

Closing his eyes, Kiritsugu still had nothing to say to Saber. Yet it was all he could do to maintain this coldness when it conflicted with the man he really was, that man who had wanted nothing than for everyone in the world to be happy.

The fact that he went on unspeaking and acting unmoved seemed to infuriate Saber further, but her own fury strangled her words, it seemed, and she could only tighten her fists and bow her head again, glaring instead at the ornate carpet.

Irisviel meanwhile, disheartened at the rift between Master and Servant, despite everything, implored, "But the Church has called a ceasefire between all Masters and Servants save for Caster—"

"Ignore that."

"But, Kiritsugu…."

And for his wife's sake, he let his tone soften, just a little. Even smiled. "It'll be fine, Iri. We simply can't trust this overseer of ours. He harbors Assassin's Master in his Church and doesn't tell anyone about it. It's likely that the two of them have formed an alliance with Tokiomi Tohsaka and Archer in order to manipulate the course of the War from the inside. An admirable approach, but from where I sit, I cannot allow it to defeat us in our own endeavors. Do you understand?"

Irisviel bit her lip like Saber did, but more gently. And then she relented. "Yes, I understand."

"Good. Well, I think that covers it. I'll have Maiya return to the city to gather more intelligence shortly, and Irisviel and I will remain here to prepare for Caster's possible assault, but for now, everyone's dismissed."

And without even looking back at Saber, Kiritsugu gathered the maps and papers off of the table and left the room, Maiya following close behind.

A little ways down the dark hallway though, Kiritsugu suddenly felt strangely weak in the knees, and he stopped.

"Kiritsugu?" Maiya stopped too.

"Maiya…if you could…take these, and put them away?" He handed her the maps and various documents. "I'll find you when I need you to depart back for the city."

Maiya took the maps and papers in her arms. "Of course."

After her back disappeared ahead, Kiritsugu succumbed to the sudden sense of suffocation that had come upon him, leaning a palm against the corridor wall. For a moment, he was gasping for another cigarette, but then that passed and all he wanted was a little time to take in some fresh air from the battlement overlooking the castle's manicured and well-kept garden.

Surrounded by the chill and serenity of the night, Kiritsugu felt easier again. And with his arms crossed he propped his elbows on the edge of the battlements and looked out over that benighted garden.

And then he felt Irisviel herself appear behind him, no doubt sensing his melancholy, and the way she softly called his name was more than he could bear.

"If I…decided…to abandon everything now…and simply run away from all this…" Kiritsugu wondered aloud as the wind gently lifted his dark hair, "Iri…would you consider coming with me?"

He felt Irisviel hesitate, and then she said, very soberly, "You know I would follow you anywhere…Kiritsugu…if you asked me…but we can't abandon Ilya. She's still waiting back at our castle."

"I'd return for her, killing anyone in our way," Kiritsugu told her at once, his voice turning hoarse as he spoke with the cold determination of a parent fighting for the sake of his child. "After that…after that…I'd…." He shut his eyes tight, trying to hold back all the desperate cries of his heart. "I'd give all I have taking care of you and Ilya," he declared unabashedly to his wife. "I would protect you both with my life."

He heard Irisviel give a low moan of compassion, and he felt that his own breaking heart would truly crush him from within.

"Could we really…get away?" she couldn't help asking in a small, sad voice.

"We could escape if we leave now!" Desperately Kiritsugu bit back the sob that threatened to erupt, his chest shaking.

But then he felt her there, her soft, warm arms around him from behind, holding him tight, holding the pieces of him together as only she could.

"You're lying," she told him, her own voice trembling with tears even as she did her best to be harshly blunt with him at the same time. "That's a lie."

And, feeling those tears on his back soak through his suit jacket, Kiritsugu looked over his shoulder at his wife, too anguished for words. Here she was, weeping for his sake again.

"The Kiritsugu I know wouldn't run away from this!" she told him fiercely, hugging him tighter. "How could you run away? If you abandoned everything…you would only be consumed by guilt. In the end you wouldn't be able to live with it, and one day you would leave our Ilya with nothing but a legacy of finding you after you'd killed yourself."

And in that, all of Kiritsugu's illusory hopes were dashed, because he knew his wife spoke the absolute truth, and he couldn't bear that either.

"I'm scared though," he confessed to her very quietly, closing his eyes again. "Maiya told me…Kirei Kotomine is after me…and he's the one man I know…who could kill me…and if he does…."

"Kiritsugu…."

"I've already sacrificed you, Iri, and I've left Ilya behind…but if this man takes my life in the end…there'll be nothing left…my dream…and Ilya will be…."

Unable to hold back anymore, he let out one quiet sob after another, but it helped even so that at least for this moment, Irisviel could still hold him the way she always would when he could no longer hide his despair. And he was glad just to hear her say, in that soothing voice of hers:

"I won't allow you to fight alone. I'll protect you…and Saber will too. And also…Maiya is here…."

"Iri…."

On top of everything else, Kiritsugu knew for sure now how hard it was for his wife to admit that last part, that Maiya—and not she—was the one he needed if he was going to see this through to the end.

Still—

But then Irisviel gave a gasp and flinched.

"Iri?"

"It's a Servant…Caster, I think…."

Hearing this, Kiritsugu slipped back into the skin of the soldier more automatically than he thought he could have, given everything. But he wasn't about to complain.

Peering over the battlements, he muttered, "Good thing we haven't sent Maiya out yet. We can launch a full-out assault then." Turning to Irisviel, he told her to have a look in their remote-viewing crystal ball.

Irisviel nodded her assent, and the two of them withdrew from the battlements and returned to the conference room, where Maiya and Saber were already gathered. Immediately setting to work with the crystal ball after having Elke retrieve it from the Einzbern Castle's private vault, Irisviel and Saber both peered within.

From across the table, Kiritsugu had popped open his laptop and was busy going over all the hidden cameras he'd rigged throughout the castle and grounds. They could both see that Caster had brought a whole group of frightened little children with him as hostages, threatening to kill them all if Saber didn't show herself.

He demonstrated this resolve quite easily by taking one squealing child by the head and crushing it in his hand as if he'd been no more than a fruit.

Irisviel gave a gasp that Kiritsugu knew came right from her maternal heart. After all, these children had to be no older than Ilya. She caught her husband's eye, and though he looked away, he knew she read his intention to use Saber as a decoy, and seized this opportunity to at least give those children a fighting chance.

"Saber," she ordered, turning passionate eyes on the Servant, "go now, and defeat Caster!"

"At once!" And Saber dashed from the room, no doubt donning her magical armor in mid-sprint.

Kiritsugu meanwhile turned back to the computer as the battle between Saber and Caster unfolded. Already he was on the lookout for other Masters approaching the castle grounds, his fingers flying across the keyboard while Maiya analyzed the screen images from behind him.

Even as Irisviel expressed concern for Saber, Irisviel's safety became Kiritsugu's priority now that Saber and Irisviel had been separated.

Shutting the laptop when he could detect no other Masters thus far, he turned to preparing his weapons for combat, as did Maiya, holstering the Thompson Contender among them.

"Maiya, I want you to take Iri away from the castle, as far away as possible in the opposite direction of the fighting."

Of course, Irisviel argued with a sense of apprehension. "But…couldn't I…remain here?"

"No, it isn't safe for you here, not without Saber."

"I suppose you have a point. All right, I'll go."

But then Irisviel flinched again, her hand flying to her chest.

"Iri?"

"Another Servant," Irisviel told him gravely. "Another Servant's joined the fray."

"Which means the Master isn't far behind." Kiritsugu was already suspecting Lancer and Kayneth. "Maiya."

"Right." Maiya finished preparations on her Steyr AUG assault rifle and turned to Irisviel. "Madam, if you'll follow me."

Kiritsugu paused just long enough for his dark eyes to follow Irisviel out of the room as she left with Maiya. Irisviel returned his glance, and he was glad at least to see that she was reassured by his looking her way.

If I can keep you safe…at least for a little while longer…just like we promised Ilya….

After they had gone, it was just Kiritsugu alone in the room. There was nothing left but for him to finish his own preparations. He had already had Elke, Meike, and Nele barricade themselves in one of the cellars below, but not without means to defend themselves if necessary.

But it was Kiritsugu, he knew, whom Kayneth would be after. No doubt personally.

Steeling himself once more, after Kiritsugu had tucked the last of the grenades inside his jacket, he locked and loaded the Calico M950 submachine gun and made to leave the room himself, only to catch sight of a curious, automated probe of mercury peering through the keyhole of the door.

So that's how you'd go about getting through the trap I laid on the first floor….

This was his only warning before the bottom of the conference room was sliced open in a wide, sweeping circle, and Kayneth El-Melloi Archibald, in all his blond, haughty arrogance, was upon him.

"I have you now…pathetic rat," he sneered, surrounded by a fluid shield of mercury.

Really. This man quite unfortunately reminded Kiritsugu far too much of Malte von Einzbern.

After luring Kayneth into a false sense of security with a spray of bullets from his Calico followed by firing a Springfield round that didn't contain his Mystic Code, all that he needed to do was to draw things out until Kayneth put all of his mana into his defense, the enormous and malleable ball of mercury, and Kiritsugu would be able to take him out with a single shot using a real origin round.

And that's exactly how things transpired. Just when Kayneth thought he had Kiritsugu cornered, Kiritsugu fired from his Contender again, and after that it was all over.

Kayneth was left as nothing more than a screaming wretch vomiting blood before collapsing in a gory mess, his Magic Circuits utterly shorted out. During the course of their battle, Kiritsugu had remained unspeaking, not one to rise to the bait of pointless taunts. And he watched Kayneth writhe in agony without a shred of remorse, his entire being locked in full machine mode. All that was left was to put Kayneth down for good. Kiritsugu approached him easily, cocking the Calico again for a final shot to the back of his head.

Only for Kayneth's Servant Lancer to appear, shielding his Master's body. On instinct, Kiritsugu fired two shots from his Calico, only for Lancer to block them both easily.

Raising his head in defiance, the dark-haired Lancer spoke, wearing a glare that was rather akin to Saber's. "You realize how easy it would be for me skewer you right now, yes? Master of Saber."

"So that's it, is it?" Kiritsugu raised his Calico again. Even if he wasn't equipped to fight off a Servant alone, he wasn't about to allow things to end here.

"I will not allow you to kill my Master," Lancer declared, throwing Kayneth's body over his one shoulder. "Nor will I kill Saber's Master. Saber and I do not wish our duel to be ended that way. But be warned, that you leave here alive today only by the nobility and grace of the King of Knights."

So Saber had allowed Lancer to waltz right in here and rescue his Master, blindly trusting that Lancer wouldn't pull the wool over their eyes and kill Kiritsugu while he was at it.

Saber….

But Lancer withdrew, taking Kayneth with him, and the fact that he seemed to possess the same code of chivalric honor that Saber did was Kiritsugu's saving grace after all. Even so, Kiritsugu metaphorically spat at that nonsense.

No. The fact was, Saber had foolishly put their entire quest for the Grail in jeopardy by allowing Lancer leave to collect his Master. It didn't matter that Saber and Lancer could trust each other that way as enemies.

And just when Kiritsugu didn't think it was possible for him to get outright pissed with Saber.

Laying aside the Calico and lighting up another cigarette, Kiritsugu let these vicious, cold thoughts swirl in his head as he watched Lancer's retreat out of the window he'd broken out through. When he finished it, he was still so infuriated that he tossed the used cigarette on the ground and smushed it out with his foot amongst the glittering broken glass littering the marble floor before he turned away, shouldering the Calico, intent on finding out the status of Caster's presence in the vicinity now that Kayneth and Lancer had been fended off.

To do that, he had to regroup with Irisviel and Maiya. Saber couldn't even bear thinking about right now.

He only got a real chill as before though when he radioed Maiya and received no answer. Breaking into a run, he dropped off his Calico in the conference room (which now had a gaping hole in the floor) and switched out for one of the M1911 semiautomatic pistols, and then headed out into the forest, into the direction he was sure Irisviel and Maiya would have gone to get away.

Only to come across them, though his suspicions that something had gone awry were confirmed when he saw Maiya unconscious on the ground while Irisviel bent over her, using her healing magic on her while Saber stood guard.

It was Saber who looked up first, her face speckled with blood but otherwise undamaged and still capable of combat. "Kiritsugu…" she started.

But Kiritsugu ignored her and made a beeline for Irisviel and Maiya.

Irisviel looked up when he knelt across from her as she worked on patching up Maiya. "What happened?" he asked her hoarsely.

"Oh, nothing we couldn't handle," Irisviel assured him, giving him a smile. However, she certainly looked worse for wear than when she had left his side. "We had a little run-in with Kirei Kotomine is all."

Kiritsugu stared at his wife. And then he noticed three claw-like tears on the lower front of her blouse, as though something had tried to tear into her stomach.

Or had it succeeded?

"Iri…."

Irisviel noticed where his gaze had fallen and laid a hand over the damage to her blouse so he couldn't see it anymore. "It's nothing."

Kiritsugu's eyes flicked from her to Saber, who had turned away towards the forest given his continued refusal to acknowledge or speak to her. It was easy enough for him to put together the rest, and he was glad to see that Avalon's power had served them well in protecting Irisviel's life.

Meeting his wife's conspiratory gaze, he nodded. "I see."

And then she reached for his hand and squeezed it, briefly, but her touch, as always, did wonders for him. Then she turned back to Maiya's injuries. Maiya, for her part, appeared to have suffered mostly internal damage, no doubt from Kotomine's use of baji quan.

"Damn it," Kiritsugu muttered.

For once, Irisviel let his swearing pass. "All right. That's about all I can do. She just needs rest now."

"Thank you, Iri. I'll carry her."

And so saying he tucked away the M1911 semiautomatic and picked Maiya up in his arms, while Saber silently followed her equally silent Master and his wife back to the castle. Even so, Kiritsugu felt the Servant's jade eyes burn into his back, and he bit his lip, being unable to bite his thumb instead to maintain his cold self-control. That didn't change the fact that he could feel his furious vexation with Saber burn black in his heart.

Up in the castle, Irisviel called for Elke, Meike, and Nele to finish seeing to Maiya—bandaging her up and the like—after Kiritsugu settled her into bed in another one of the many bedrooms. While Saber had reassumed her black suit and stepped out onto the battlements where Kiritsugu and Irisviel had been speaking earlier, and the maids tended to Maiya, Kiritsugu went to find his wife, who had withdrawn into the little room she had claimed for herself, trying her hand at sewing her blouse back together.

I know there isn't much time, he thought desperately as he watched her from the doorway, but let me at least have this.

Irisviel looked up at him from where she sat on the edge of the bed with needle and thread from a sewing kit Meike had found for her. "Look at this," she said, holding up the needle as it winked in the lamp light. "I've grown so handy with it now. I'm even pleased this came up, so I'd have another chance to do something like this." She smiled for him again.

Having removed her blouse, Irisviel wore nothing for a top but her sheer undershirt, revealing just a hint of the bra ad smooth skin underneath. Though this evoked the stirrings of more old memories in Kiritsugu, he refused to let them go on trying to consume him from within. Even so, he watched her as the most beautiful woman in the world, the most beautiful woman in the world that he knew her to be, inside and out. And she patiently allowed him to watch, understanding, as she finished repairing her blouse.

"Did you enjoy your day, walking the city?" Kiritsugu asked her gently.

Irisviel chuckled without looking up from her needle and thread, her soft fingers moving so nimbly and so reverently over the fabric. "I did, yes," she murmured, no doubt remembering all the wonderful things she had seen and felt. After a pause and a deep breath that she then exhaled, she added, "Thank you."

"Good. I'm glad." Kiritsugu went on watching her, and as had so often happened between them before, words weren't entirely necessary.

"There we are," she finally said, holding up her handiwork. "All done." And she slid the blouse back on again, good as new. "Well, I'd best check on Maiya again," she went on, getting to her feet.

"You're not still tired?" Kiritsugu asked her softly.

"No, I'm fine, really." Her smile disappeared though when he approached her, and she waited for him to speak with some expectancy. "What is it?"

Very carefully, Kiritsugu slid his arms around his wife and hugged her close, tight but tender.

Irisviel happily returned the embrace. "Are you all right now?" she asked him, her voice just a little watery.

"You fended off Kirei Kotomine for me, didn't you?" Kiritsugu closed his eyes, his cheek pressed against hers, filled with her iris scent.

"My love…." Irisviel buried her face in his shoulder.

"It seems you did well, all things considered. I'm proud of you." Kiritsugu hugged his wife tighter, sliding his fingers briefly through her silken silver hair. "But please…for now…just stay safe."

"I'll try…." Irisviel let out another sigh and then pressed, "You're not angry with Saber, are you?"

Kiritsugu had to let out a calming breath himself before he could speak where Saber was concerned. "Iri…saving a few children…or even a few dozen for that matter…is not our goal. And I'm sure Saber had no doubt of Lancer's sense of honor, but if he had chosen to betray that after all, our Grail War would have ended in the blink of an eye. Anyway…from the looks of things…it would seem none of those children were in the realm of saving…just a trick of Caster's…."

"Yes…." Irisviel shuddered. "I just…kept seeing Ilya's face…." She gulped. "And it was so hard, you know…? Saying goodbye to her…."

"Yes, I know." Kiritsugu stroked the curve of her back briefly.

"Kiritsugu…."

They both lifted their heads, and husband and wife both looked into the face they loved so dearly. Kiritsugu's smile of encouragement couldn't be anything but bittersweet, as he reached up and brushed his knuckles against Irisviel's cheek.

"Ah, Iri…."

In the silver moonlight, he touched his lips to his wife's forehead, a kiss to carry with her as a token, as she made her final journey. And in her he felt her strength return, as if she knew he was doing all he could to comfort her even as the machine that was Kiritsugu Emiya.

In spite of everything, when the time came to unveil the golden shine, even Kiritsugu couldn't help looking at it.

Caster had brought down his ultimate wrath upon the Mion River with the conjuring of a great octopus-like creature which he had cocooned himself in, threatening to devour the entire city in his madness. From the crowd of onlookers, Kiritsugu had deduced that the raving lunatic of a red-head among them was Caster's Master, and after sniping him in the head, it was clear he'd been right.

After getting a message to Lancer over the phone with Rider's young Master that Saber's Noble Phantasm was their only hope of defeating Caster, all that was left was for him to hang up and wait while he abandoned the boat he'd been on for the inflatable life raft and prepare a signal flare. Shortly after, Kiritsugu could see from the river Lancer break one of his staffs in order to free Saber's hand from his curse.

From there, Saber unveiled her golden shine of Excalibur and stepped out onto the river as Kiritsugu fired the signal flare. Motoring out of the way as Caster's monster reentered the river from the release of Rider's Reality Marble, he shored up and stepped out onto the muddy bank.

And then Saber rose her bright sword high, and light gathered as if it were the souls of anyone who had dreamed of a beautiful, happy future despite the world's darkness. Kiritsugu could sense it, and as he pulled the raft ashore, this feeling from this light touched him, and he was compelled to look up.

His mouth went dry as the Heroic Spirit he could not accept thunderously cried out, "EXCALIBUR!" and unleashed its power upon Caster and his monster. He felt his jaw go slack against his will in breathless wonder. Before he knew it, he reached out to that shining light, and for a moment, he felt again like that young boy, learning about heroes like Saber who had lived before him, filled with that golden illumination of awe and respect, delightfully humbled by it.

And then it was gone, all was dark again, and Caster was wiped clean off the face of the Earth along with his monster.

Kiritsugu blinked in the shattered stillness as the peace of the nighttime river returned, with the underlying murmuring of the relieved crowds of onlookers. He even felt the residue of the awe of all of the Servants—Rider, Archer, Lancer—who had watched too.

Lowering his arm, which had suddenly turned heavy, he shook his head, feeling like he was waking up from sleep again, and resumed pulling his tiny raft higher up along the muddy shore, turning his back on Saber as she stood alone on the water, staring at the spot where Caster had disappeared.

He did wonder however, just for a moment, what someone like her might be thinking right then, in the wake of such glorious triumph.