Chapter Twenty-Three
Love Sprung from Fire
As with all great fires, a healing rain eventually came. Though it held no power to bring back the lives of those who had died, at least it offered a fighting chance for those who remained.
Though as the night wore on, and Kiritsugu still found no one alive amid the aftermath of the Grail's destructive flames, he began to think of the rain as pointless relief. Even so, his spirit was possessed by a force that would not let him stop until either he found someone alive or died trying. At this point, finding one person would be the last miracle that was still possible. Otherwise, it would seem that all who had been living out their quiet lives until this night had indeed perished, leaving no one behind at all.
Ilya…just wait…just a little longer…there has to be someone….
He staggered through the cooling ruins, growing emptier and emptier with each step, more and more like a ghost. Within his blood, he was only vaguely aware of a dark feeling pulsing through him. Numbly, he became conscious of a throbbing sting on his wrist where the vision of his wife had dug her nails in as he'd choked the life out of her. Strange that he should feel it when it had all been…a sick and twisted nightmare…the Grail trying to torture him into submitting his wish….
Even so, it hadn't mattered, it seemed. He refused and tried to destroy the Grail, and still something like this happened. Not on the scale of the whole world, but again, crunching such numbers seemed meaningless now.
Trying to save everyone was impossible.
Now it seemed…trying to save anyone…was impossible.
Still, his feet moved beneath him. Still, he sought for that one person that might be holding on, even now, just long enough that he could find them and save them. He even thought he came across Kirei Kotomine at one point, but then…that might've just been another ghost conjured up to torment him.
He was past being tormented. His own fire would soon burn out…and Ilya….
Knowing his daughter to a point that couldn't be described in words, he felt certain that she was beside him now, in a way, looking up at him and ready to cry to see him so pathetic and diminished and vulnerable. Not the strong father she had always known him to be. And with her mother gone too….
Truly, he had no concept anymore of what was real and what wasn't at the moment.
No doubt his child had had many of her nightmares since Kiritsugu and Irisviel both left her. She would've tried to escape that fear by crawling out of her own bed and sliding into his and Irisviel's instead, so she could at least pretend that somehow they were both still with her. But even then…she couldn't protect herself from the nightmares, he was sure of that too.
Ilya….
Combined with his own stance as a person, even at his most vulnerable, he could not stop, even as he was reduced to shuffling in the smoldering rubble.
Where there was flame still, it was pointless to look. Anyone who couldn't get away from them by now had already perished, as Kiritsugu could see when, despite himself, he examined, just in case.
So many dead...
Picking his way through the edge, where the rain was washing the burning oranges and reds away into a calm blue, Kiritsugu tripped once and fell, but he didn't even care. He just got up again and kept going.
Nor did he care when the rain got in his eyes. He blinked...and blinked...and blinked again...
Wait...was that a...hand...?
Kiritsugu blinked again, not entirely sure. But though it was tiny, it definitely looked like a hand...reaching up to the endless sky above...
His feet quickened their staggering pace beneath him...his heart beating as if it might come back to life again...
He tripped and fell a second time, but within reach of the small hand that was already starting to fall, as though giving up—
Lunging forward on his hands and knees, his heart leaping with him, Kiritsugu caught it, gripping it tight.
No! Don't let go! Don't give up, just yet!
The pale, rain-smattered face of a little redheaded boy looked up at him. At first his eyes appeared dark and empty, but then, when he lifted his head with a low moan, that was all Kiritsugu needed.
"He's alive! He's alive! He's alive!"
Everything came flooding back as he cried out surging tears, his mouth spreading into a grin of divine joy.
Better still, something like a light that reminded Kiritsugu of Saber flickered briefly in this little boy's eyes.
Overcome with such euphoria that broke through all his exhaustion, Kiritsugu wept tears that fell with the rain, the product of crazed happiness, as he pressed the little boy's hand to the side of his face.
"I'm so glad I found you...by saving even one person...I...I've saved myself..."
He scarcely knew what was tumbling out his mouth, he was so overwrought. And then he could only pause to shake with joyful sobs. When he paused for breath, he beamed at the little boy again, and the little boy, even if he was, for the most part, half-dead, the part of him that was still alive seemed to gaze up at Kiritsugu with a kind of frail wonder.
"Don't worry...you don't have to be scared anymore..." Kiritsugu told him, the same way he'd speak to Ilya when she was afraid. "Everything's going to be all right..."
The boy made another small noise, deep in his throat, as though past feeling some incredible pain from injuries he'd no doubt suffered. Such a tiny child, about Ilya's size but probably younger technically given Ilya's growth rate and development. A child who before had known nothing of Hell.
Kiritsugu's desperately aching heart—for his daughter, for his dead wife, for the salvation of this boy, of himself—reached out, and he lifted that little boy into his arms, gently scooping him up as he would've done for Ilya, holding him close, his tears falling into the tuft of red hair.
"I promise, it'll be all right now," he reassured him. "You'll be okay."
The boy gave a little croak and coughed harshly, and pulling back, Kiritsugu again experienced a moment of horror to see blood trickle out of the child's mouth. Coughing again, the boy hacked up more blood, nearly choking on it.
What if he's bleeding internally? Kiritsugu thought, hopeless again.
But then he thought: Avalon.
Would it still function, even with Saber gone?
He had to try.
The boy's eyes drifted closed as he coughed up more blood. Kiritsugu carefully laid him out on the ground, and then, just as Irisviel had done, he extracted Avalon from his body, and implanted it into the boy.
The effect was almost immediate, and again Kiritsugu experienced that happy surge of hope, as the scabbard's power glowed gold from within, and then dimmed, and from the sound of it, the boy's breathing did sound easier than before.
He then wiped away the blood from the boy's mouth, sensing he would still need to see a doctor. Thinking this, he became aware of the sound of emergency sirens. So he picked the boy up in his arms again and carried him out of the rubble towards civilization and life, where he could see flashing lights.
While a response team was trying to put out the fires, they all looked genuinely surprised to see anyone coming out of the wreckage. Several members of the team swarmed Kiritsugu, and it was about then that his exhaustion combined with his no longer having Avalon caught up to him.
"Here, please, he needs an ambulance," he croaked. But tired as he was, Kiritsugu wouldn't leave the boy until he could see he was on his way to a hospital.
While an ambulance was brought another rescue team member was phoning hospitals to see which one could take the boy. Once one arrived and a hospital was found, Kiritsugu handed the boy over, but he kept his eyes on him until the doors closed on him safe inside the vehicle.
Then Kiritsugu's knees buckled and he collapsed, though he didn't lose consciousness. He couldn't afford to. Right now he had to return to Einzbern Castle and rendezvous with Elke and the other homunculi, inform them of the situation.
And...get home to Ilya. He had to get her out of that cursed castle of Jubstacheit's as soon as possible.
But the surrounding rescue workers insisted he see a doctor as well.
Kiritsugu gently pushed away their eager help and regained his feet.
"It's all right, I'm fine, really..."
And he made his way out of the crowd of rescue workers and terrified onlookers and headed as fast as he could down the road that would lead him back to Einzbern Castle. He thought briefly of the motorcycle he had gifted to Saber as a means of getting to the castle faster, only to realize that she had followed his intentions and taken the motorcycle to the Citizens Building, which meant it had been all but destroyed undoubtedly in the fire.
When he pushed the doors open into the atrium of Einzbern Castle and let them shut behind him, Elke, Mieke, and Nele were there to greet him.
"Master Kiritsugu," said Elke. "Welcome back. The War has concluded, then?"
"Yes." Kiritsugu ran an exhausted hand through his hair, fighting tooth and nail against an emergence of nauseating fatigue. His mind was working furiously, thinking before speaking now he'd come back, and empty-handed no less. Looking up at Elke's blank stare, he made the decision then to be very guarded, and simply said, "I need to make arrangements…to return to Germany."
"Very well." Elke inclined her head. "But where is the Grail?"
Kiritsugu actually smiled, though it was mirthless. Perhaps though he did relish in the fact that he had something with which he could mock the foolish Acht. "You leave those details to me. Rest assured that Madam Irisviel has fulfilled her purpose without incident. For now, we have to return to Einzbern Castle in Germany as quickly as possible."
"I see." But Elke's expression had turned too thoughtful.
And then, Mieke spoke up. "Are you…quite certain…sir? You do not appear…entirely fit…for travel..."
Kiritsugu waved a hand. "It's fine. I'll need to report to Acht as soon as possible concerning the Grail, but I would also like to bring my daughter here to Japan."
Nele tilted her head to one side. "What 'concerning the Grail'?"
"Well, I am the victor," said Kiritsugu, putting on a false show of triumph.
"That is excellent, Master Kiritsugu," Elke commended. "Grandfather Acht will be most pleased."
"Indeed. So while I make the initial preparations here, I will need you and Mieke and Nele to return to Germany ahead of me and…." But suddenly Kiritsugu was overcome with a wave of dizziness that crashed down upon him and knocked him off his feet as his overexpenditure of energy took hold of him against his will. Doubling over, he did his best at least to hold back the sensation of his insides heaving with the threat of making him vomit.
To his mild surprise, Elke caught him by the shoulders as he collapsed to his knees. Blinking blearily up at her, Kiritsugu outright glared at her basic resemblance to Irisviel, losing the will to put on a façade anymore.
"How dare you...look like her...?"
After that, his strength failed him. Whatever his previous ability to keep going on pure grit was, somehow he could no longer do that, and he sank helplessly over the crook of Elke's surprisingly strong arm, the hoarse whisper of, "Iri..." on his lips as he succumbed to blacking out.
The concept of sinking beneath the weight of crushing water had always been in the back of Kiritsugu's mind, but he had never really thought about it until now, as he found himself there, wrapped in its cold, dark depths. Upon opening his eyes, he was aware of a light, but he had no sense of orientation and was stuck floating in limbo, only able to hazard a guess as to where the light was coming from.
And then a voice spoke.
Irisviel's voice.
"Kiritsugu..."
He could tell that she was crying, and her tears fell on his face like rain. But he couldn't see her, no matter where he looked. She was just...crying.
"Kiritsugu...oh Kiritsugu..."
It was more heart-wrenching than Kiritsugu could bear, and he tried to call out to her, beyond any kind of logic.
"Iri...I'm sorry...I'm so sorry...please forgive me..."
But Irisviel could only weep it seemed, and the darkness swallowed Kiritsugu completely.
"Iri…Iri…Iri…."
As Kiritsugu awoke, her name faded away with his voice. He had tears in his eyes, cold and streaming down his face, and he had that pain again like he was being knifed in the chest with every shallow breath he took.
Looking around, he saw that he was in one of the bedrooms of the castle. The light from the windows glowed with the pale grey of early morning, and the rain had stopped.
The door opened as if on cue, and Elke entered with a washbowl and cloth. So Kiritsugu worked to sit himself up, even though he felt sore and drained all over, and his head throbbed. Though he wiped away the clinging tears, Elke deigned to acknowledge them.
"Good, you are awake." Elke set the washbowl and cloth on the writing desk underneath the window. "I have made preparations for our departure, as per your instructions, Master Kiritsugu." And then she did something strange and gave him a smile. "We will wait with Miss Ilya and Grandfather Acht for you to bring us the Grail at long last."
"Look forward to it with anticipation," Kiritsugu told her, giving her a grin that he knew was devilishly charming, but at the same time so at ease that Elke couldn't possibly think that something was amiss.
Or maybe he did that because he suspected that she did.
After taking a much needed bath and having his clothes washed and dried, he saw the three homunculi to the private plane at the airport, and then took a taxi to the hospital he remembered the boy he had rescued the night before having been taken.
Upon arrival, he inquired of the boy through an attendant nurse.
"Ah yes! That poor little one, after that awful fire. He's awake and stable. Are you his father then?" Her eyes passed over him in a kind of quick scan, as though searching for a family resemblance.
Kiritsugu shook his head. "No. My name is Emiya Kiritsugu. I was…the man who pulled him out of the wreckage…." He massaged the back of his neck, fighting against his discomfiture.
The nurse's eyes lit up. "You're the man!" She positively glowed with admiration. "I had heard that was what happened…that a man pulled that little boy out of the burning rubble and then disappeared…like a dark hero in a manga!" she added with an unsupressable giggle.
Kiritsugu said nothing, nor did he meet her gaze.
But the nurse sensed his sensitivity and cleared her throat, treading more cautiously. "Well, even if you aren't his father, I think he might be cheered to see you, his rescuer. That was…a really brave thing you did," she opined meekly.
Disregarding this too, Kiritsugu asked, "Then…has no family come to claim him?"
The nurse was like a flower that wilted as she turned genuinely sad and subdued. "No, no one. I think he might be all alone."
"I see."
"Would you like to see him?"
Kiritsugu looked up at the nurse again, and he could tell that she was reaching out to him, that the way she was regarding him was probably part of the reason she had become a nurse in the first place: to help anyone she saw who was in trouble and needed help.
But he had to decline. Somehow…he felt he couldn't impose on the boy. Besides, maybe all he'd be able to think about was his traumatic experience if he saw the man who had saved him. Doubtless he was still trying to wrap his head around it.
"Thank you…but I just wanted to make sure he was doing all right."
He turned to go.
"Emiya-san!"
At her voice, Kiritsugu, not wanting to be impolite to someone who glowed with such kindness, turned back. "Yes?"
The nurse came out from behind the nurse's station and handed him a slip of paper. She pressed it into his hand. "In case you decide to come back, I wrote his name down. And my name is Fukui Akiko. Just tell them I sent you if I'm not here." And she gave him a small bow.
Kiritsugu reflected her gesture. "Thank you, Fukui-san."
After she returned to her post, he looked at the slip of paper and read the name written in kanji.
Shirou.
Immediately afterward, he made impromptu arrangements to meet with Raiga Fujimura in person. After all, the house he had had Maiya procure for him in Miyama Town would no longer serve as a safe house for a war. Instead, he thought…he would make it into the kind of home he knew Irisviel would've loved to have shared with him here with their daughter, had she been able to. It was rather sad really, that for all the excitement she had no doubt expressed at seeing it, she had probably spent much of her time cooped up in the storehouse.
In any case, seeing as how he would put his plan of bringing Ilya here into action and use this house now as the building it was intended to be, he felt it only right to actually meet with the man he had purchased it from, officially. If only to address the fact that there were parts of it that would need fixing up, not just from that attack during the War, but as the house itself had been a previously abandoned property, it would need some tender love and care before it could be fit for anyone to live in. But then of course that was why it had been so easy for Kiritsugu to procure it from the head of the Fujimura yakuza group in the first place.
From what he heard of Fujimura's voice over the payphone he used, the man sounded like a sharp and lively old sage, but then Kiritsugu supposed the capo of a mafia group could be just as jovial, even with outsiders. Or maybe he was the kind of man who trusted people on instinct, and knew in his gut that he could put his trust in Kiritsugu Emiya.
Kiritsugu arrived at the property an hour ahead of the scheduled time upon which he and Fujimura agreed to meet. And truth be told, he again was reminded of how little he had actual seen for himself of it. Heaving a sigh, he was drawn to the storehouse, the place where he had lost two women who had both been important to him in their own ways.
Yet when he slid the door open, he saw that Maiya's body had disappeared.
Though in some ways he thought that that was probably for the best…he still couldn't help a turn in his stomach that some idiot had probably stumbled across it in the time that the Bounded Field around the place had been broken. He would have to see to setting that up again. Wrap this place up in a blanket of protection for himself and his daughter.
Sliding the door closed again, he turned to the rest of the house. For one moment, he stood rooted to the spot, the ache in his heart resurfacing as he looked back on how Maiya had died, how it took her dying for her to reveal to him a sliver of what she'd truly felt for him. How she had died fighting for his sake, for Irisviel's sake.
And then with his thoughts drifting back to his wife again, the ache grew in intensity, and he was threatened with sinking into the mire of his own sorrow that he had lost her, that he had let her go…for nothing. His mind withdrew to that dark scene that the Grail had tortured him with, and it was all he could do to hold back his tears at the pointlessness of it all.
The sacrifice that had been meant to be humanity's last, its salvation, Irisviel's life…all that had been rendered null and void. And even if he tucked this pain and this grief away as easily as he had always managed in his own way, it would still always be there, and it would always creep up on him when it was unwanted.
He covered his face in one hand, trembling as new tears fell, glittering in the pale winter sun.
"Iri…I wish…I wish…."
After all he had poured his heart and soul into the wish that had driven him for so long, even after realizing that another had taken up residence within him, in this moment, he only wished that he could speak to Irisviel…just one more time…surely that alone would be enough….
Taking deep gulps of air, he worked to master himself, his mind finding its way to the goal he had set before him. As soon as he finished his initial business here, he was going to go back and reclaim his daughter from the Einzberns. He only hoped that he could manage it without incurring Acht's wrath for his having, in a sense, failed to achieve the Grail.
Surely…the man would see some reason when explained to him the Grail's true nature? That it was nothing more than the object of a fool's errand? Actually, that was putting it mildly.
He didn't expect the man to be happy about it, but he was counting on him respecting his word. After all, Acht wasn't a wicked man, per se. A cunning, cold man who had probably lived for far too long, to be sure, but not wicked.
For the sake of his daughter's salvation, Kiritsugu had to believe that Elder Acht would, once he saw that Kiritsugu didn't have the Grail, be curious to know how that could be when he had just proclaimed to Elke, Mieke, and Nele that he was the victor of the war. Granted, that was unofficial, but for all intents and purposes, the Grail had chosen him.
He had done all that he could. Acht would not fault him for preventing the world-wide disaster that the Grail would have caused had Kiritsugu blindly submitted his wish.
Taking a deep breath, he decided he had to find some other way to kill time, since the reason he had come here early in the first place—to claim Maiya's body—had been rendered pointless too. So he threw off his long black coat and suit jacket, and got preoccupied with pulling out a few weeds along the edge of the house. After some time engrossing himself in this, a voice spoke up from across the vast lawn.
"Hello there!"
Kiritsugu looked up and stretched his back, seeing an old man dressed in a traditional kimono of black silk, accompanied by a pony-tailed, teenage girl hefting a kendo stick over her shoulder.
As he watched them draw closer, something rang nostalgic with the girl such that it touched something in Kiritsugu's heart, and he quickly realized why when their eyes met, and the bright girl, seeing him look at her, gave a kind of inaudible gasp, whereupon the color rose to her cheeks, even as something playful lingered in her expression.
Shirley….
It wasn't that she looked precisely like her…but even so, it was something he could sense.
The girl smiled, but said nothing, perhaps half-picking up on the sadness that had no doubt lingered in his dark eyes, giving her attention back to the old man.
Kiritsugu did the same. "Fujimura-san?"
"The very same," said Raiga Fujimura as he approached. "So you are Emiya Kiritsugu, eh? Precisely how I imagined you." The man had a rather tiger-like grin, strangely enough, but it was somehow still friendly at the same time.
The two men bowed.
"I'm glad we could finally meet," Kiritsugu said. "And who is this?" he added, amicably acknowledging the girl again.
Fujimura chuckled and inclined his head. "My granddaughter, Taiga. I apologize, but she insisted on coming, and unfortunately I enjoy indulging her now and then. She was just so curious about meeting the mysterious stranger who had gone out of his way to purchase such a rundown scrap of my property." The smile he directed to his granddaughter was nothing short of the doting affection particular to grandparents.
"It's an honor to meet you, Taiga-san." Kiritsugu bowed again.
"And you as well, Emiya-san!" Taiga bowed too, but with energy, as though she were eager to get it over with so she could go back to peering at him inquisitively. "But for some reason, you aren't at all how I imagined you! I thought you'd be taller!"
"But I'm taller than you," Kiritsugu pointed out.
"Ah but that will change with time," said Taiga, her voice ringing with bright confidence. "I'm still growing. And one day, it'll make no difference that you're taller than me now, because in the future I'll have reached your height."
Kiritsugu couldn't help chuckling himself. "You give your personal perspectives on things out rather freely."
Taiga shrugged. "Well, I always thought that if you're always honest with everyone, you won't have nearly as much to worry about in the long run."
Kiritsugu laughed again at this too. "A very valid point, I suppose. In that case, do you test a person's worth by your shinai then?"
"Indeed I do!" And Taiga gave a small demonstration of her skill with the tiger-patterned blade of bamboo, which was definitely impressive. "That's right! You're looking at the famous 'Tiger of Fuyuki'." And she winked. "But you understand this means that you and I now hold an appointment."
"Hmmm." Kiritsugu stroked his chin. "Well, all right, but you may have to give me a refresher session on that first. It's been a while since I've played around with the art of kendo."
There was a time when he had taken up the practice in between his time with Natalia and when he'd met Maiya, when he'd taken a kind of leave in Japan. Really, he had only picked it up as a means to focus himself, to remain active on the outside while on the insides he had been licking his wounds from having killed the woman who had raised him for much of his life.
Taiga lowered her kendo stick, and clasped her hands behind her back. "It's a date then," she said with a grin.
"Now, now, Taiga, let's not scare the man off," Fujimura teased. Turning to Kiritsugu, he added, "So, Emiya-san, I trust you have plans to do a bit of sprucing up here?" He nodded to the house and grounds in general.
"Well, yes," Kiritsugu admitted, scratching the back of his head. "You see I'm…. Well, I'm bringing my child here, and…well, it won't be fit for a family to live in until it's fixed up right."
"Absolutely not," Fujimura agreed. "In which case, I'd like to offer you my assistance with the labor. Particularly where that peculiar incident is concerned." He looked in the direction of the still half-destroyed storehouse.
"Ah…that." Kiritsugu hesitated, and then said hastily, "Well, I appreciate it, really I do, but I couldn't impose, Fujimura-san."
"Oh yes you can!" Fujimura raised an index finger and waggled it, as though reprimanding Kiritsugu. Or something like that. "And I think no more, 'Kiritsugu-san, Fujimura-san' now that we've been formally introduced. Feel free to address me as –kun, and I shall do the same for you, my fine fellow."
Kiritsugu blinked, admittedly a little thrown. "Ah…okay." His eyes flickered in Taiga's direction, involuntarily turning to her for some kind of assistance, and Taiga opened her mouth to speak, but then, thought better of it and didn't.
However, Kiritsugu had a distinct feeling that that wasn't typical for her. At any rate, he let it go and turned back to Fujimura. "All right. Well, then, your services are welcome, Fujimura-kun. Thank you very much." And he bowed again.
Fujimura waved a hand. "Think nothing of it." Then he checked a pocket watch he had tucked and ticking inside his kimono. "My, is that the time? Well, I'm afraid we'll have to cut things short, but we shall see each other again soon of course. Give me a call when you're ready to give this shack a proper fix." And he laughed rather emphysemically.
Which made Kiritsugu all the more glad that he was contemplating quitting smoking altogether. After all, he had no need of such things in the life he hoped to cultivate with his daughter, now his last fight was over.
He waved as he saw Taiga and her grandfather off, and he couldn't help but feel a little of his sadness for the loss of his beloved Irisviel lift just seeing that young girl's luminous smile of farewell.
I hope…Ilya will like her, he mused, reveling in the hope that shined renewed in his broken heart.
Out in the frozen forest that surrounded the castle and barrier of the Einzberns in Germany, Kiritsugu made his way on foot from the village that marked as far as a car could conceivably go up the mountain (yet another reason Acht had been disgruntled about bringing up the Mercedes Kiritsugu had bought for Irisviel, no doubt it had been a trial getting it back via Elke, Mieke, and Nele). He recalled what a different man he had been the last time he had made this trek, when he had first arrived here to be the Einzbern trump card. The winds weren't as fierce as they were today though.
He wasn't surprised when he was prevented in going a step further when he reached the edge of Acht's frozen barrier. Obviously he hadn't given an exact time frame of when he would be arriving. The last time, he had given his ruthless first impression of himself to Acht with how easily and efficiently he had managed to break through his Bounded Field.
And like then, he reached out a hand, and began feeling his way through the mechanics of the Field.
But then...that spot on his wrist throbbed again, and something smarted painfully in his Magic Circuits, causing Kiritsugu to recoil.
"What the...?"
He tried again, and the same thing happened. More than that though, but he was having a little difficulty finding a suitable path through the Bounded Field, even with this anomalous interruption.
"Master Kiritsugu."
Kiritsugu looked and saw that Elke had appeared, not even having bothered to dress for the cold. "Elke."
"So you have arrived at last." Elke held out her hand. "Grandfather Acht would like to see the spoils that prove your victory before you are admitted to pass. The Grail, if you please."
"I told you I won," Kiritsugu said, slightly irked. "Is my word no good to him?"
"I cannot speak for Grandfather Acht. I am only carrying out his instructions."
Kiritsugu fixed the homunculus with a livid glare. "Don't play this game with me. I've come for my daughter."
"After you hand us the Grail." Elke blinked, and then she smiled that same strange smile she smiled before, tilting her head to one side. "You don't have it, do you?"
Kiritsugu bit back a swear. "No...I don't..."
Elke shook her head, clucking her tongue. "Then I cannot allow you to pass."
"But the Grail is evil," Kiritsugu pressed, even as one hand curled around the handle of his holstered Thompson Contender. "So it was necessary...that I take pains to destroy it."
"That is irrelevant," Elke declared. "These are the conditions Grandfather Acht has laid out. That being said, I shall now go and inform him of your failure."
"Don't you dare," Kiritsugu growled as Elke turned to go. "What about Ilyasviel? My daughter?"
"She is perfectly safe here, have no fear," said Elke calmly.
"That isn't what I asked." Kiritsugu withdrew the Contender and aimed it at the back of Elke's head.
Elke looked at him, unflinching in the face of his gun. "So you betray again. I'm curious to see what little Mistress Ilyasviel's reaction will be when I inform her that her father is a liar."
She did indeed sound genuinely curious, if robotically so. Nevertheless, Kiritsugu had had more than enough of this and squeezed the trigger.
But Elke was an infuriatingly quick model off of Lord Justeaze and actually dodged the shot, also thanks in part to the barrier actually slowing the bullet down, and a nearby pine took the hit instead. The worse she came off from it was having to smooth more crinkles out of the skirt of her maid dress.
"If I were you, Kiritsugu Emiya, I would not come back here again. Leave Mistress Ilyasviel to us."
"Damn you…." Kiritsugu attempted to pursue the homunculus, but was stopped again by the barrier. As Elke disappeared into the white, he tried several more times to work out the barrier like he was always able to, but he kept getting blocked, and experiencing that bite of pain to his Magic Circuits. Only when his efforts made him cough up blood did he stop.
And his wrist was throbbing again. Staring at it, he thought back again to that dark moment inside the Grail, when it had said with Irisviel's voice and lips: "I curse you, Kiritsugu Emiya. Suffer until the day you die."
"No. I won't lose my child over this. I can't..." He wiped the blood from his mouth and lifted his head to the shape of the castle already looming like a pale shadow over the icy, howling mountains. "Don't worry, Ilya," he whispered, praying that at least his voice might reach his daughter somehow on the wind, imagining her in his mind's eye, sitting in her own room on the floor surrounded by all of the toys he had bought for her, looking out of the window every five minutes with the eager expectation that she would see him emerging from the white snow. "Daddy will come back for you. It'll just take a little longer than he thought. Please, just wait, and I promise, I'll get you out, I'll save you. Ilya..."
Yet the ache in his heart for Irisviel's loss rose up again, painfully intensifying the ache for his daughter. And it was all he could do to keep his head as he was forced to turn away for the present.
He massaged his wrist as he descended the mountain.
"My Magic Circuits need more time to heal, that's all," he told himself. "I'll come back when they're strong again...and take back Ilya then."
Having no choice but to return to Fuyuki for the present, Kiritsugu set about the task of fixing up and furnishing the house in Miyama Town. He gave Raiga Fujimura a call on his way from the airport as the midmorning sun shined down on the city as it endeavored to recover from that disastrous fire in Shinto. When Fujimura answered, it was clear he'd been rather eagerly anticipating the call. Kiritsugu was beginning to get the sense that Fujimura already foresaw the two of them as buddies who would share many a round of sake in years to come. Kiritsugu, for his part, bit his lip in mild apprehension, considering he'd never been faced with such normality of modern life in a very long time.
Nevertheless, his anxiety over this new development in his fallen relationship with the Einzberns and how that affected his extracting Ilya from them was somewhat alleviated, just in the same way Taiga's smile somehow alleviated some of his grief for Irisviel. And before he knew it too, he got off the phone with Fujimura realizing only then that his feet were carrying him in the direction of the hospital where the little boy he had rescued, Shirou, had been taken.
Yet he didn't turn back when he realized this.
Instead, he pressed forward a little further. And when he came to the front of the hospital, he contemplated the building for a long while, scanning each window, wondering vaguely if little Shirou was gazing out of one of them.
The nurse, Akiko Fukui, had said no one, no family, had, as of yet, come to claim him, that she thought he was all alone. If he was still there, after it had been over a week since the fire…then indeed it would seem that whatever parents or family Shirou had had before…they had all probably perished in that blaze. Everything then…had been lost to him….
"Iri…what should I do…?" he murmured, and again he felt that painful ache just to be able to speak to his wife one more time. And he felt an encroaching loneliness threaten to overwhelm him. "Iri…."
Like with Ilya, he wanted to believe at the very least that Irisviel might somehow still be able to hear him, even with his having done his utmost to destroy the Grail. All he had left to cling to was starting to fray, along with his heart.
Yet, he had come to know his wife too well to have to think too hard about what she would have said. If anything, the way she had reacted to Caster's show of taking all of those little kids (even if they had been pure decoys) hostage was already answer enough.
This inspired something within him to move away from the hospital only to return to the house in Miyama Town, empty the contents of his one carry-on bag he'd brought with him on the plane, and then return to the hospital with the empty bag.
He felt even better about his decision when it was Akiko Fukui on duty again, and she seemed rather pleased to see he'd come back.
"Welcome back, Emiya-san." She bowed. "Have you come to see Shirou?"
"I have." Kiritsugu looked about and then asked in a low voice, "So then…there still hasn't been any family to come claim him?"
Akiko shook her head. "Not until today," she said with an all-too-knowing smile, glancing briefly at the empty bag at his side.
Kiritsugu made an attempt to share in that smile. After all, no doubt she was observing this all with a rather poetic assessment of it.
And it was poetic, in its way. He remembered Irisviel alluding to it—that relationship between the savior and the one who was saved, how a bond seemed to always form between two such people, whether brief or for a lifetime, with the rescuer taking on a sense of responsibility for the rescuee, when she asked him why it was that he had been there, watching over her in his own way, in the aftermath of his rescuing her from that snowstorm…all those years ago.
With a lift in his heart, he thought he could feel the warmth of his wife's smile, like the sun at his back, as he followed Akiko to the ward where Shirou was stuck, waiting for someone he probably thought would never come.
"It's a good thing you're here," Akiko told him as they made their way. "If it had been much longer without anyone showing up, there was an orphanage already prepared to take him."
"I see."
"Of course, now that you're here…perhaps he has a choice in the matter?"
"Hmmm…well…what would I need for…depending on how he decides?"
"Just some paperwork filled out at the government office. Luckily that's in another part of Shinto, so no worries about the fire having ravaged that building."
"Okay. So, paperwork…?"
"And…two witnesses, I believe…but…as far as his release…that can be arranged immediately…so long as he consents."
"Uh-huh."
Before they entered the ward where they kept all patients that were unattached minors, Akiko stopped just in the entrance.
"He's on the end." She nodded in the direction behind Kiritsugu. "But I wanted to let you know that...apart from telling us his name...we haven't been able to get a word out of him. Not a squeak."
"Ah…."
"But…he understands what we ask him…and he'll make a sign if he wants to answer non-verbally."
"I see," said Kiritsugu, not the least bit surprised but no less saddened to hear this bit of news. "Thank you."
He gave Akiko a bow, and she bowed back and left him to it.
Actually, if Kiritsugu was honest with himself, he was rather nervous. He didn't want little Shirou to turn away what he wanted to offer him, but he felt that the boy would be able to see it in his face the moment he looked up at him and realize:
It's your fault I ended up here. It's your fault I lost my home. It's your fault my parents are dead.
That, and he knew he must look a sight. He hadn't shaved since before the Grail War commenced, and he hadn't slept a wink between flying to and from Germany, and that only made him think fleetingly and forlornly of Ilya.
Even so, he put on a hopeful smile for the young redheaded boy. The little boy broke his gaze from the window and looked his way at his approach, and Kiritsugu could see as he drew close that he seemed a bit dazed to still be alive after what he had been through.
"Hello there," Kiritsugu said to him kindly. "You must be Shirou-kun. My name is Emiya Kiritsugu. I'm glad to see you're doing all right."
Shirou blinked, big golden-brown eyes, but Kiritsugu saw a flicker of recognition in him. He had known from the moment he'd seen him walking this way that he was the man who had pulled him out of that hellish, burning rubble. Doubtless that was one thing this boy would never forget.
Kiritsugu pressed on with a clearing of his throat. "Well, I'll get straight to the point. You have two choices today: would you like…to go and live in an orphanage…or would you like instead…to be taken in by a man you just met?"
Shirou blinked again, as if to ask, "Do you mean you?" And then he frowned and looked up at the ceiling, clearly pondering the question with a seriousness rather beyond his years (according to the chart he was only five). He even scratched his chin in an exaggerated posture of thoughtfulness—but then most small kids were like this. Ilya certainly was. The simple fact that Shirou could still act so much like a child in this way was both a comfort to Kiritsugu, as well as something that he realized endeared the boy to him.
And then Shirou turned to him again, still frowning with childlike gravity, and raised a tiny index finger to point at him.
I choose…to go with you.
Kiritsugu stared at him a moment, and then, as it sunk in, he couldn't help giving a little laugh as he felt the emergence of a true smile. He felt again a ray of happiness in his heart that a moment before he had few reasons to believe he would still feel. With Irisviel's loss still weighing so heavily on him, and the uncertainties concerning his retrieval of Ilya, he thought that he sensed some of the burden of those feelings of grief and fear lift away a little, at little Shirou deciding he would like to live with him.
Certainly, his competition had been an orphanage. But it wasn't as though the orphanages in Fuyuki were bad, in fact they were highly regarded as orphanages went, from what he was given to understand. And if Shirou had really not wanted to go with him, he could have decided to go the other way.
But he didn't.
Overcome, he cleared his throat again as he knelt on the floor with the duffel to start packing what few things were left in Shirou's possession. "Good. I'm glad. In that case, we can get you to your new home right now. It's still being fixed up, but once we're done, I hope you'll like it." He paused in unzipping the duffel, heedless then of the other kids in the ward coolly observing this wholly insignificant exchange with masks of indifference. "But before we do that…I should tell you something first." He thought about it another minute, nodding in agreement with himself, before he looked up at Shirou again and told him, "Yes. You should know…right off the bat…that I'm a magic-user."
Shirou tilted his head to one side. There were hundreds of questions no doubt trying to swim up to his lips, but he still couldn't seem to speak aloud for his trauma. All he could seem to do was blink in what Kiritsugu realized was a kind of awe.
Kiritsugu went back to packing the duffel, still wearing a smile, even as it turned a little melancholy. Yes…I'm a magic-user…but…I'll never ask you to be. Magic's more trouble than it's worth.
There would be a set of futons delivered that afternoon, thanks to Fujimura's efforts and Kiritsugu's funds (which he had yet to transfer in their entirety to a Japanese account), along with a small space heater that could serve as a means to keep tea kettles warm, and a table with a kotatsu, along with other furnishings forthcoming. Kiritsugu had to admit that he found something…tranquil…in settling into a traditionally put-together Japanese home, perhaps after living so long in occidental quarters, even before his time in the Einzbern Castle in Germany. Then again, maybe that was something that was inherently Japanese in him.
After they left the hospital, Kiritsugu took Shirou with him to buy him clothes and anything else he might want. Though it was somewhat difficult, given Shirou still couldn't seem to speak, walking on his own a little behind Kiritsugu at something of a shuffle, now and then looking up nervously at Kiritsugu. But Kiritsugu was easily patient with him. He didn't want to scare Shirou off, which was why he was hesitant to take Shirou with him to the government office (aside from the fact that he had his own paperwork he had to put together for himself first, like ID cards, that sort of thing) to have him officially adopted just yet. He wanted to give the boy a chance to decide if he would regret coming to live with him.
Granted, when he finally managed to retrieve Ilya, that would potentially complicate matters. He wanted to believe that Ilya would be able to open her heart to Shirou as a little adopted brother, and he wanted to believe that Shirou in turn would open his heart to it too. So until then, he would keep the existence of his daughter to himself from Shirou.
For now, he had to take little steps. Even as Shirou couldn't seem to speak, he could still communicate, and Kiritsugu could still see a life full of thoughts behind those golden-brown eyes. He could nod to what he liked and shake his head to what he didn't like, and point out what he wanted. He was very reticent about it, to be sure, as though at first he were afraid to, but Kiritsugu let him know gently that he needn't be scared.
"Pick out whatever you'd like, Shirou," Kiritsugu told him, smiling the kind of smile he would have given to Ilya. His wish for her to be here with them throbbed in his heart, but he didn't let Shirou see the sadness that was there. Or at least, he hoped he didn't. After all, there had been times when he'd thought that Ilya hadn't been able to see his sadness, and he'd been wrong about that.
Shirou wrung his tiny hands before making each of his selections, and the excursion ended with them leaving with the store with a couple of bags in tow, the store itself strangely full of people and life as usual despite the destroyed part of Shinto still being slowly resurrected.
But then perhaps Kiritsugu's sense of time at the moment had been slightly warped by all the traveling and little sleep he'd had over the last week or so.
As they made their way to another store to get things like toothbrushes and other similar essentials, Shirou did pause for one moment in front of the window of a toy store, looking up in curiosity at a display in the window of a toy bow and arrow set.
When Kiritsugu realized the boy was no longer right behind him, he backtracked and found him there. Crouching so that he was on a level beside him, he too looked over the toy bow and arrow.
"Look at that, it's a bow and arrow," he said. "Do you like that?"
Shirou looked at him, and then back up at the toy, and he made a noise like he was going to ask for it, but then decided against it.
"It's okay, if you want it, I can get it for you," Kiritsugu told him, wary of pushing the boy too much. "After all, I don't have any toys for you at your new home, so if you want something, I'll buy it for you. Then you can have something fun to play with."
In the back of his mind he was already planning on getting new toys for Ilya once she was settled into the house in Miyama. She might cry about it, but the most important thing was getting her out of there. Though, at the very least he was sure there would be time for her to get her favorite toy lamb, Klara.
Kiritsugu glanced at the other toys in the window. Apart from the bow and arrow (whose arrows were tipped with harmless suction cups), there was also a toy sword and shield…and a few toy guns. Toy guns that shot nothing more than harmless foam darts.
He heaved a sigh and straightened when Shirou, unable to say anything still, resorted to fiddling with the drawstrings on the new coat Kiritsugu had bought him. Maybe it was better that Shirou didn't so eagerly concentrate his energies on such innocent imitations of what were nothing more than tools of death in the adult world.
"It's okay, Shirou. You don't have to decide right now."
Shirou blinked up at him, and after a moment, he nodded, and followed Kiritsugu along the sidewalk again.
Just as Kiritsugu got the sense that Shirou was still looking up at him, he felt the tentative touch of the boy's small fingers. Looking down with a little surprise, he had the same feeling of warmth sliding into place in his heart, like when he'd first held his daughter as a newborn baby, as Shirou found it in himself to slide his tiny hand into Kiritsugu's large one. And his smile game back, bittersweet and true, just for the sake of Shirou finding himself safe enough in his company that he trusted him to hold onto his hand this way.
Shirou blinked those golden-brown eyes up at Kiritsugu again, and Kiritsugu knew at once what he was asking:
Is this okay? Is this okay with you that I do this?
And Kiritsugu answered by gently squeezing back. Yes, this is okay.
Without having to it hear it, Shirou could read it in Kiritsugu's face, and he nodded, as though satisfied, and clung just a little closer, as if saying, This is just until I can stand on my own again. Thank you.
Blinking rapidly, Kiritsugu looked ahead once more as the two of them made their way together through the moving, bustling city of Fuyuki, thinking, Ilya…I really think…I really think you'll like your new little brother. I hope.
Again, his imagination, desperate to cling onto what little there was left to him in his life, conjured up the sense of Irisviel smiling like warm sunlight at his back.
And at Shirou's back too.