As expected, it was not easy at all. Two of the workshops were the homes of families already residing in Fuyuki, so searching for them was a futile task. On the other hand, Kayneth Archibald El-Melloi had been predictable enough to take up residence in the upper floors of the Hyatt Hotel and transform it into a nearly impenetrable magical fortress.
Magical workshops are territories created by magi for the purpose of practicing their thaumaturgy. Structures may be established for the purpose of being developed to suit the abilities of a family of magi or a temporary space within which to best establish one's thaumaturgy.
It is something that a magus has created after years, decades, generations of work. If a Magic Crest is an artificial organ, then a Workshop is like an artificial world.
Many Magi prefer to have their workshops underground or at the highest point possible. It makes a difference whether you want to channel the power of the Earth or the power of the Heavens. For example, given some unique conditions on the island of Britain, the Clock Tower had numerous underground workshops while the Spiral Mansion on the mainland had others in the mountains of the Himalayas.
In short, these were not spaces that could be created anywhere, at any time. So there were a limited number of options in all of Fuyuki that could serve the purpose.
And yet, Kiritsugu could easily have spent months investigating each one of them. So he had to forcibly shorten them by the radius of where Saitou Reiroukan's corpse had been found.
And he ended up with about thirty. Abandoned buildings, empty warehouses, and even what looked like a half-built shopping mall with an underground parking lot. Each and every one of them were good options, but he needed to be more pragmatic.
He had finally decided to explore a couple, only to come back empty-handed. The first was a warehouse that had housed heavy machinery for years while the second operated as a sort of speakeasy.
Needless to say, the dark-haired boy didn't find it funny. He would have continued with the same pattern for days, if he hadn't found a promising option by pure luck.
In retrospect, it should have been their first choice, honestly. The location was on the outskirts of Shinto and it was a western-style mansion in a forest clearing that carried some history intimately connected to the hidden side of Fuyuki.
It had been built by Kaarina Edelfelt, one of the Masters of the Third Holy Grail War over sixty years ago, after all, and used as her base of operations during the ritual.
Kiritsugu's every instinct told him that this was the place, so he should logically start planning to investigate it.
But there was a problem.
Through liberal use of Mental Interference and snooping through the files of various real estate departments, he had learned that the property was in the name of the Tohsaka Clan.
To pry directly into the affairs of the city administrators was not wise. Although Tokiomi Tohsaka was six meters underground, his wife seemed to have lost a good part of her mental faculties and his daughter was just a child around Shirou's age, Kiritsugu had taken the trouble to keep a light watch on the Tohsakas, only to discover a very bitter surprise.
People die when they are killed. Especially when they are killed by a shot to the heart.
Needless to say, seeing Kirei Kotomine still among the living had sent a chill down his spine. Through some relatives, he had been monitoring the Tohsaka Residence as discreetly as possible, where he had discovered that the Executor came several times a week and spent a couple of hours inside.
There were also times when he was accompanied by a black-haired girl with pigtails and blue-green eyes, whom he had identified as the Tohsaka heiress.
Recalling that Kirei Kotomine had apparently served as an apprentice under her father for about three years before the War, Kiritsugu had deduced that the priest had ended up taking the place of the daughter's tutor.
Given the proximity of the Fuyuki Church to the place he planned to investigate and its connection, it was understandable that Kiritsugu was wary of rushing in.
If possible, the ideal would be to wait for a suitable opportunity as one of the two was out of town, but he had no way of anticipating something like that, leaving him to uncertainty.
Kiritsugu stretched in his seat after hearing Shirou knock on the door, indicating that the snack was ready.
The black-haired boy walked to the dining room and sat down before thanking for the meal and proceeding to eat what Shirou had prepared for that occasion: miso-glazed tuna with tender broad bean salad. Something a little more elaborate than usual, and whose idea had most likely come from the afternoon cooking show.
Not bad, Shirou was really advancing in his cooking skills.
I was finishing eating, when I noticed that the redhead seemed to be more focused on looking at the television remote control while keeping one hand on top of it.
"Shirou, what are you doing?" He asked while raising an eyebrow.
"Nothing, I was just looking inside the controller." Shirou replied calmly, as he removed his hand from it.
Kiritsugu blinked.
"Seeing the inside? Oh, I see." He realized that Shirou was using structural analysis on this one.
"I can see most of this when I do it. I started practicing it on whatever I came across whenever I wasn't trying to practice my Reinforcement." Shirou explained, before placing his hand on top of the controller again. "Look."
She could see Shirou's circuits activate for a second, and he frowned slightly in extreme concentration. But she didn't have to wait long, as the redhead stopped what he was doing and smiled.
"When I do that, an image of the thing appears in my mind and allows me to see many things about it, for example I can see that one of the buttons doesn't work because a part is bent inside and there is a broken wire," he said.
"And you've been doing it with everything since then? Wow." Well, it was another one of the more basic forms of thaumaturgy that were hardly used beyond an elementary level. Although, it wasn't that surprising that Shirou had gotten excited about it since it was the second thaumaturgy he was learning and it was obviously easier to use than Reinforcement.
He felt sorry for saying the following.
"Shirou, I'm sorry to tell you that that's a bit of a pointless thing to do." Seeing the redhead's almost pained expression, he hurriedly explained. "It's a waste of effort to perceive the structure with your eyes. For a true magus, there's no need to understand every corner of a structure like you just did.
The battle of one of them is to read the center, the core of things instantly, and change it faster than anything else.
That's why reading the structure is a futile endeavor, as even if you were to fully understand it, the most you can do is determine where the magical energy could be transmitted most easily. Though on second thought, that should help you a lot with your Reinforcement practice."
Hearing that, Shirou's expression turned into a tired one that caused Kiritsugu to laugh inwardly. It had been several days since he had introduced the redhead to that task, and he had already been forced to buy more pencils thanks to the amount that had ended up breaking in various ways.
Because his body was still in its growth period, Shirou had not yet defined the limit of his Od production. But with thirty natural circuits that had been opened at a young age, the redhead already had a count of thirty units of magical energy, five points higher than an average first generation magus, and this number would increase over the years until he reached maturity.
That, plus what his Crest could offer him, would surely put him several levels above his own ability as a magus, but Kiritsugu did not wish to address that topic yet. Aside from the fact that he had no idea how to teach Shirou to use the possible spells engraved on it, the biggest dilemma was the jar of worms that would arise as a consequence of Shirou's forgotten past.
No, it was better to wait. Anyway, he was sufficiently entertained by that to distract him with more things.
"I can try to reinforce about nine pencils before my circuits burn up enough and I stop," Shirou confessed as he rested his face in his hands. "But I always end up breaking half of them."
"I told you it wouldn't be easy," Kiritsugu reminded him. "You know what? Let's clear the table and get this in order, and then when you go to practice I'll be there to give you a hand."
It was as if a switch had been flipped, because Shirou seemed to instantly perk up and hurried to carry the dishes to the sink, as well as clean them up.
In less than fifteen minutes, the two of them were already inside the shed, with Shirou taking one of the pencils.
"Trace on." He muttered, closing his eyes as he analyzed the structure of the object under the watchful gaze of Kiritsugu, who had taken a seat on the other side of the table.
Not even half a minute passed before a crack opened at one end of the pencil and Shirou dropped it with a less than happy expression.
"Damn." He growled, giving the broken pencil a sour look as if it had insulted him.
Kiritsugu just narrowed his eyes. "Do it one more time, I think I figured out what's going on, but I need to be sure."
Shirou nodded, and took another pencil before repeating the process again.
"Stop right there." It came to him suddenly, forcing him to undo the attempted spell as he turned to his father with doubt written clearly on his face.
The black-haired man had this time been looking at Shirou's attempt with structural analysis, allowing him to see the flow of magical energy within the pencil and where it was being directed.
As well as the size of this one.
"I see what's happening. You're directing too much magical energy into one or more points of the pencil. By the time it fills in the imperfection, there's still some energy left over and since it can't find anywhere to settle, it causes the body to break." I explain, causing Shirou to frown as he looked at his hands.
That was another common problem for those beginning to learn to manipulate their magical energy.
This alone was difficult to manipulate, requiring years of practice in order to gain control over the currents within oneself without resorting to thaumaturgical theory or a spell.
And while Reinforcement was one, the very theory behind it was extremely vague, which had both its advantages and disadvantages. On one hand, its simplicity made it extremely cheap in terms of expenditure of magical energy as well as easy to learn, but on the other hand came the intense difficulty of putting it into practice.
"What can I do then?" Shirou asked.
Kiritsugu had been thinking exactly the same thing. He was sure there were several exercises that could solve that, but the problem was that he couldn't think of many or that he simply didn't know how to use them.
Although now that he thought about it, he did have one that could more or less serve that purpose and that curiously was another of the things he was sure Shirou could learn.
"I told you days ago about Material Transmutation and how Reinforcement is a part of it, but it's not the only thaumaturgy that does it. There's another one that's in a way, a slightly more complex form of it." Kiritsugu pointed at one of the intact pencils and activated its circuits again before an exact copy of it appeared in his hand. "It's called Air Gradation, but everyone commonly calls it Projection."
"Wow." Shirou gaped as he looked at the new trick.
"Projection is a thaumaturgy that allows one to materialize objects according to the caster's imagination, through the use of magical energy." Kiritsugu continued to explain before placing the pencil copy next to the original. "It is called 'Gradation' because it comes from the fact that the created object slowly fades away after being created, and 'Air' because it is an allusion to the fact that said object is ultimately made of 'nothing', see for yourself."
And he pointed at the copy, which blinked for a few seconds while its figure became transparent and finally disappeared without leaving any trace of its existence.
"The item is not eternal, as the world recognizes it as a phantom that does not belong to the natural world, and it will be erased as an inconsistency." Kiritsugu sentenced. "However, the better the image in the magus' imagination, the more stable and durable the item will be, and it can be further enhanced if one has technical knowledge of its construction, such as a blueprint, or if one has materials to superimpose the desired shape on top of it."
Shirou frowned slightly. "For a more advanced form of Reinforcement, it sounds a bit useless." He commented.
"That's because it actually is," Kiritsugu replied. "Most modern magi consider projection to be incomplete thaumaturgy and mostly useless for anything other than immediate activities, such as projecting a sacrificial object to be abandoned in a ritual. It's usually easier and more practical to create an object that doesn't disappear with proper techniques and materials."
"Ouch." Shirou said as he looked at the empty space that the fake pencil had once occupied. Whoever had invented that had surely been the laughing stock of their time.
"And yes, while Air Gradation is a more complex form of Reinforcement, it is ultimately inferior and less efficient. Comparatively speaking, if a magus uses Projection to recreate something like a sword while expending around ten units of magical energy in the process, all they would get would be a weapon with a total strength of three or four. Meanwhile, if they were to use that same magical energy to reinforce a sword that already exists, they would get a weapon with a power of twenty or thirty." The raven-haired man said as he pondered. "Though I do remember hearing somewhere that it's also possible to apply Reinforcement to enhance the capabilities of the projected item, not that I've ever tried or needed to."
"I see. But what does all that have to do with this?" the redhead asked, thinking that they had surely gotten off topic.
"It's very simple. Another of the few uses Projection has is to help newbies gain better control over their magical energy," Kiritsugu remarked. "So I'll teach you how to use it so you can improve your manipulation of it in Reinforcement."
"Oh, great." The redhead's eyes lit up at the prospect of learning another type of thaumaturgy, even if it was as useless or even more useless than Structural Analysis.
"Alright, Projection has three steps that you can think of as 'commands'." Kiritsugu began to explain as he took another pencil and placed it in front of Shirou. "They must be performed in order or else it won't work, but they're not hard at all to do really."
Kiritsugu's eyes focused on the pencil for a moment before letting his right hand linger inches above the space on the table surface that lay beside it.
"These are 'Judging the Concept of Creation', meaning you identify what you want to project." He continued before pointing his index finger at the table surface beneath his hand and rotating it around, as if he were tracing an imaginary circle. "Next is 'Hypothesizing the Basic Structure' or recording the shape of the object in your mind, which is the most important thing. If you don't have what sustains its existence, you can't manifest it."
Shirou listened attentively, almost being hypnotized by the movement of Kiritsugu's hand.
"And lastly, 'Project the finished product', which doesn't need to be explained." The black-haired man concluded, while conjuring another copy of the pencil on the table.
"Now, it's your turn," I encourage him.
Shirou nodded before turning on his magic circuits again and muttering his Aria. Mentally repeating the steps Kiritsugu had instructed him to take, he looked at the two pencils in front of him and extended his hand.
A thin body of no more than seventeen centimeters, orange in color except for the tip and the opposite end where a small plastic case lay that housed an eraser.
He drew that image in his mind with some effort, and pushed it towards the river of energy flowing in his arm, transporting it to his hand, and then...
A third pencil, virtually identical to the previous two, appeared next to them.
Kiritsugu gave a light clap which caused Shirou to smile.
"Alright, there's your first projection." I congratulate him with a pride not very characteristic of the black-haired man. "With this, you can practice over and over again how to distribute magical energy along the structure of an object without having to reinforce it. In theory, you could improve in less time with something like an advantage."
"Thank you very much, old man." Shirou thanked as he took his projection that was already beginning to fade, and he kept a somewhat unusual shine in his eyes upon seeing such a phenomenon.
xXx
Slowly, a routine began to form in the Emiya Residence, separated by the respective actions of its occupants.
On a mundane level, Shirou went to school, did some housework including cooking three meals a day, entertained Taiga by having Kendou duels at the Dojo whenever she came to visit, and played video games with her. The fact that the redhead got the short end of the stick in both of those things was omitted.
On the other side. Shirou continued to practice his Reinforcement on the pencils inside the shed. Just as Kiritsugu had said, his use of Projection had greatly contributed to this, and the proof lay in the fact that he was now able to reinforce multiple simple objects in a row without breaking them unless he was distracted, which Shirou seriously avoided, placing great importance on his adoptive father's lessons on the care he had to take when practicing Thaumaturgy.
Of course, that didn't mean he was anywhere near becoming an expert in the field, but the redhead was rarely discouraged. He even seemed to have acquired a kind of more intense fervor when it came to practicing thaumaturgy, whether it was by reinforcing pencils over and over again or projecting copies of them, and even other things.
Kiritsugu had once surprised him making some sort of pyramid of crystal spheres, like the one he had reinforced days ago. In the absence of toys, it seemed that the redhead had found another way to entertain himself.
On Kiritsugu's worldly side, not counting accompanying and picking up Shirou from school, he was also in charge of managing the household finances and doing the chores that his son could not do.
But on the other hand, he kept the tightest surveillance possible on both the Tohsaka Mansion and the Fuyuki Church, awaiting any movement that might come from either.
All this, while making all possible preparations for his investigation of the former Edelfelt Mansion that had most likely also been the lair of Saitou Reiroukan, his person of interest during the Fourth War.
From preparing a couple of familiars to serve as scouts, to even recovering some pieces of his old hunting equipment, which were hidden in a safe buried under a hatch in the shed, which he had taken care to drag up to his room where he could have it at hand and out of reach of Shirou, who would surely have found it sooner or later with his recent eagerness to use Structural Analysis on almost everything he saw.
The days quickly piled up into weeks and before either of them realized it, almost a month and a half had passed since Misaki's mess.
Until finally one fine day, Kiritsugu received almost on a silver platter what he was looking for.
One of his relatives, stationed on a post on the street of the Tohsaka Residence, had managed to see how three people left it and boarded a limousine; two of them being Kotomine himself and the heiress Tohsaka, who was pushing the wheelchair of a woman with black hair with a greenish hue and a lost look, the same one that Kiritsugu had identified as Aoi Tohsaka.
Another relative, located on the same street, had tracked the vehicle until it left Fuyuki along one of the roads towards the rural area.
He had no way of knowing how long this trip would take or the nature of it, but an opportunity was an opportunity and Kiritsugu was not one to waste it often, if ever.
That had brought him there.
Walking to the side of the park near the Great Fuyuki Bridge over the Mion River hadn't taken him half an hour. Taking a taxi to the other side and then to the outskirts of Shinto even less.
I had arrived at that place.
After a few minutes of walking through a stretch of forest, the ghostly silhouette of a tall building in a clearing appeared before him as if straight out of a fairy tale.
Even from the outside, I couldn't deny that it was a building with a very unique appearance, and while it couldn't compare to others like the Tohno Mansion, or the abandoned Einzbern Castle that had fallen into ruin, it still had some pride in its appearance. At first glance, I could see that it had two floors and what seemed to be an attic judging by some of the windows I could see along the roof.
The last notable feature he could see was the pair of chimneys that jutted out from the top of its roof.
However, he would have to go inside to find out more about her, which led him to finally put on the shoes he had planned to use to rescue his daughter. Speaking of which, he activated his circuits as he sent a pulse of magical energy into the environment in order to make sure that whatever he was looking for was there.
And he didn't have to wait long to know the answer.
Delimited Fields.
They are a type of topographical thaumaturgy that involves weaving a web of magical energy and spreading it across the base area, such as a terrain or building, to create a mystical boundary line that separates the inside from the outside.
Once constructed, the established boundary line will delimit the range of the Boundary Field's powers, but it is possible to engrave magic sigils within it to expand the area of effect and strengthen it. Removal of sigils by a third party is possible as long as the technique used to engrave them is not too advanced. In this case, it is only possible to temporarily hinder the Boundary Field by dissipating the magic energy used to activate it, but the creator of the Boundary Field can always correct that by simply putting more magic energy back into it.
However, new seals can also be constructed through the effects of a spell cast by the creator, making the Boundary Field capable of self-repairing in due time.
As its original purpose was to create safe havens, the effects that can be set within a Bounded Field are mostly those that aim to protect the caster. Offensive variants do exist, but since they work through indirect magical interference, their efficiency against those who can protect themselves magically is not very high in most cases.
Advanced Boundary Fields work on a subconscious level to prevent onlookers from noticing them, but placing them in a large area increases the chances of being detected by a trained magus. An ideal Boundary Field is one that no one can detect. On the other hand, a Boundary Field that can be easily noticed is seen as the mark of a third-rate magus.
And in the case of Kiritsugu, who had been a particularly efficient Bounty Hunter in the fine, destructive art of detecting them and tearing them apart, he was in a different category.
He had been right, the place had definitely served as a lair for a magus long ago. Now all that remained was to confirm whether it had indeed been that of the Tokyo Administrator.
He focused back on what he had felt.
There was indeed a large fenced field surrounding the area around the Edelfelt Mansion and it wasn't exactly very old. But its complexity was a separate issue, had it been complete, Kiritsugu had his doubts that he would have been able to make his way through it, having mechanics that he couldn't quite discern at a glance and reminded him of those of the Einzbern in Germany.
If it had been complete, of course.
The Boundary Field was shattered, as if a spider web had been exposed to a shower of stones, capable of destroying a good part of its structure, and leaving behind a tangle of fragments that remained tied to their function as best they could and that would remain as magical waste around the property until the environmental energy they fed on was exhausted.
That or someone will take the trouble to destroy them from the roots.
That someone would not be him, as he saw no need to waste magical energy on such a futile effort, as the remnants of the Bounded Field barely had the power to manifest.
However, to be sure.
Kiritsugu dropped the backpack he was carrying hanging on his side and after opening the zipper, he took out a jar containing a small bat, which he set free and sent flying towards the house.
The familiar fluttered for a few seconds in random directions until it crossed the few meters that separated it from the Mansion without much difficulty. Finding nothing in the portico, Kiritsugu guided it with a thought to ascend to one of the windows on the second floor. Once again, the familiar remained unharmed.
That made the raven-haired boy frown. Normally, a series of offensive spells and other lethal protections would have reduced the poor winged mouse to a small pile of ashes on the ground, but it seemed that wasn't the case.
Trying to tempt fate, he sent the bat down and fluttering as close to the door as possible. One of the bat's wings brushed the surface of the door and the animal's snout touched the handle.
Nothing.
Kiritsugu raised an eyebrow. Either the mysteries engraved around the entrance to the house had completely lost their power and had finally dissipated after being unable to sustain themselves even with the ambient energy following the death of the thaumaturge who placed them there, or they were advanced enough not to be activated by something like a familiar.
Although Kiritsugu doubted it.
Well, all that was left was to get closer.
With extreme caution, the black-haired man walked while continuing to send pulses of magical energy at intervals of several seconds in order to try to detect other spells that his familiar had not managed to activate. It was a simple piece of thaumaturgy, but very effective.
Developed by a rather notable Hitman of the Association several centuries ago, it was an easy-to-learn spell that allowed one to detect, to a certain degree, various forms of thaumaturgy in an area. A blessing for Magi like Kiritsugu, who lacked a specific channel to accurately detect it like others, who had cultivated those senses over generations, discovered a way to implant them in one, or spent years conditioning one of their senses for the task.
But his worries were in vain, because even when he sent a pair towards the portico after setting foot on it, the only use of magical energy he could detect was none other than that of the familiar flying in circles around the site, awaiting further orders.
I try again with the door, where this time I do notice something. Some kind of protection, probably against possible intruders, had been engraved on its surface in response to someone trying to break through.
The problem was that that mystery had been forcibly suppressed by someone else using some kind of unknown spell, causing both of them to be relegated to being no more useful than the delimited field surrounding the mansion.
That confirmed the suspicion that had been lingering in his mind ever since he had noticed the damage to the barrier. Someone had attacked the place.
For a moment, he began to think of one of the Servants from the Fourth War, but dismissed that suspicion after taking another look at the surroundings. No, although about two years had passed since that event and perhaps nature had repaired the damage that could serve as clues for that hypothesis, the almost pristine state of the mansion threw that theory into disarray.
Kiritsugu had experienced firsthand what it was like to be a Servant, with the collateral damage they left behind in all its glory.
That left one of the Masters, but who?
Kiritsugu hadn't been keeping track of all of their movements during that time, he would have to review his notes and investigate further when he had time, but first he had to search the house.
He opened the door, finding himself in a European-style hallway with several pictures on the walls and a pair of doors that probably led to the living room, and perhaps to a dining room. Further down, on the right side, there were some steps leading to the upper floor.
And just as I expected, everything was covered in dust and cobwebs.
The black-haired man walked down the hall, not needing to take out the flashlight he had brought in his backpack. The numerous windows in the house, as he could see after looking through a door, provided almost natural lighting in it.
Flying a couple of meters in front of him, the familiar continued in its role as scout and from time to time emitted one of its characteristic screeches in response to the pulses that Kiritsugu sent in order to check that there were no traps inside.
He explored the rooms on the floor, finding little more than all kinds of furniture, even a kitchen of a particular size that had seen better days. If he had seen it, Shirou would surely have had spasms before cleaning it from head to toe.
...And probably get depressed when he realized he couldn't take her home.
Kiritsugu shook his head. No, he couldn't afford to be distracted like that right now.
He left the kitchen, ready to venture to the second floor without noticing that a white substance was beginning to ooze from beneath the refrigerator.
There weren't many steps to climb. The upper floor shared a similar layout to the hallway above, complete with a number of doors leading to the other rooms.
He walked over to the first one and frowned as he noticed its interior.
At first glance, it was a simple room with a pink wallpaper on the walls, a carpet with a floral pattern, and a desk where a small brown bag rested.
Outside the bed, the last notable feature of the room was the window. Kiritsugu walked across the carpet, feeling his foot lightly stumble on something hard beneath it. Squinting, he caught sight of a bulge and lifted the carpet, revealing the poorly preserved corpse of a bird.
Kiritsugu immediately frowned upon seeing the state of it and focused a pulse on it. He had had his suspicions, and they were practically confirmed with the spell he had used.
It was unlikely that an animal had entered the house, and even more so that it had died in such a place. That, and its state of putrefaction did not match the time that must have passed. Several days had to have passed for the body to be left in that state, that and the fact that scavengers such as worms and flies were conspicuous by their absence only confirmed what Kiritsugu had deduced.
He was an abandoned relative.
But why had the house magus left it there? It made no sense. The logical thing would have been to place it at least near the window, so that it would serve almost as an improvised surveillance camera.
Kiritsugu dropped the familiar under the nearby bed, and walked over to the desk. Almost instantly, his eyes fell on the small bag, and he hastily untied the string that held it closed. Grabbing the other end, he shook it so that the contents spilled out.
A myriad of colors danced before his eyes as the sunlight streaming through the window caught sight of the objects that had come out of the bag. There were quite a few of them, at most around fourteen, and all of them were of different shapes and sizes.
Precious or semi-precious stones. Kiritsugu recognized some as amethysts, malachites, opals, and even what appeared to be a ruby. But they all shared one characteristic: They had a distinct symbol engraved on their surface.
Signs that Kiritsugu recognized almost instantly: Runes.
Although his knowledge of that type of alphabet was not even basic, the black-haired man was well aware of the importance of these in some European schools of thaumaturgy.
The gemstones had been turned into Runestones, a basic type of Mystic Code that even normal people could recognize and admire in places like museums or the occasional medieval fantasy movie.
"Saitou Reiroukan's profile indicated that he had knowledge of Runes." Kiritsugu muttered to himself as he looked at the gems. After thinking about it carefully, he began to return them to the pouch one by one.
He was almost done when he became alert after hearing a creak on the stairs.
Kiritsugu froze before abandoning the gems on the desk and quickly dropping his backpack to the floor after extracting the gun he had brought. The figure of his revolver, the specially modified Thompson Contender returned to his hands after so long.
It came already loaded, but only with a single cartridge of .30-06 Springfield bullets. Of his special ammunition, he only had a handful left, of which he had brought about two.
The dark-haired man tentatively moved towards the door with his finger on the trigger, and quickly ran towards the hallway while aiming, ready to fill the unexpected visitor with lead.
Only for her eyes to widen as she caught sight of who it was.
Or rather, that.
Several meters away, just up the stairs, lay a mass of about two meters, white and slimy, but with an undoubtedly humanoid appearance. It stood on two legs that ended in intertwined tendrils and that seemed to be formed by ligaments that served as support for the body that consisted of a disproportionate chest, the size of which forced it to remain hunched.
It had two immense arms, identical in appearance to its legs, whose length reached the ground thanks to its posture and which ended in three tentacled extremities like fingers.
Finally, it had a head devoid of a neck that looked like a kind of huge blister that also lacked a face with the exception of three black spots, which seemed to clumsily imitate eyes.
A homunculus. Common familiars in Magi who played various roles.
Among them, security.
A homunculus that was staring at him, and then began to advance with clumsy steps and an undoubtedly hostile intention judging by the environment.
Kiritsugu didn't think twice, and unleashed fire on the humanoid.
Several bullets hit the homunculus' white body, causing a couple of holes that made it stagger, but in the long run they were little more than scratches that did little to stop its march.
Knowing that the core of these was usually in the head, Kiritsugu prepared to shoot at that part. But the homunculus, who apparently had enough consciousness to protect himself, placed one of his arms in front of him as a shield.
"▂▂▃▃▄▄▅▅!"
The bullets from the black-haired man's revolver horribly decimated the member, causing the tendrils that composed it to begin to come off.
Gritting his teeth at the futility of the operation, Kiritsugu ran back to the room, but not before locking the door. Seeing that there was only the desk, he quickly picked it up and placed it against it as a parapet, something that his body did not thank him for judging by the muffled groan he let out.
The vial he had drunk nearly an hour ago had lost its effects, the curse was once again free to affect him.
Cursing under his breath, Kiritsugu ran to the backpack and frantically searched inside, pulling out one of the ones he had brought with him.
"▂▂▃▃▄▄▅▅!"
But he had barely managed to uncover it when a loud knock against the door made him shudder. Outside, from the hallway, a pair of groans resounded followed by dry knocks against it, which perfectly indicated that the homunculus was just on the other side and planned to force his way through.
Kiritsugu drank the vial, letting the bitter liquid fall down his throat and threw it away from him as he tried to quickly come up with a plan.
Shooting the homunculus at point-blank range would only waste his bullets. This one was not like the Einzbern he knew from close up: Those ones mimicked the human body almost perfectly, and were almost as fragile as these unless they used thaumaturgy to defend themselves.
This one, on the other hand, belonged to another type that he had seen a few times during his missions. They were a variant manufactured today only by the Prague Alchemists' Guild as muscle personnel for performing heavy tasks, and which had some potential for combat.
Nothing but a particularly powerful spell or heavier artillery would be enough to take him down. And unfortunately for Kiritsugu, neither of those options were something he had at hand at the moment.
The most the Thompson Contender could do with its normal bullets would be to destroy the homunculus' core, which must have been in its head. A task it had been unable to complete in the hallway with the homunculus shielding itself behind one of its arms.
Kiritsugu reloaded the revolver's cartridge just as a creaking sound behind him forced him to turn around, only to see the homunculus' head peek out from an opening he expanded with his arms.
I didn't hesitate to fire a couple of shots into the unprotected face. This time, the bullets sank into the white spiral that served as the homunculus' face, mutilating it horribly while the force of the impacts forced it to raise its head back, the surface of which seemed to be suffering spasms.
Kiritsugu continued to unload a few more shots, not confident that he had destroyed the core and stopped when the homunculus abandoned its position and began to stagger as if it were drunk, before finally falling back onto the floor of the hallway.
"There," the raven-haired man commented to himself as he walked over to inspect. Being blocked by the desk he had placed, Kiritsugu climbed over it and peered through the gap in the door at the inert figure of the homunculus, who had managed to have his head leaning against the opposite wall.
It seemed like he had finally reached his limit, which was a relief. Kiritsugu didn't think he could have destroyed it on his own under those conditions.
Luckily, an opportunity had presented itself to easily blow his brains out.
He looked at the head, and saw that it had not regenerated. Where there had been a curved surface made of tendrils joined together and with three 'eyes', there was now a kind of hole whose mouth was made of the tendrils. A hole that was emitting a slight glow, now that he noticed it.
It was at that moment that a heavy smell of ozone reached his nose, and his eyes opened again as he realized that…
"▂▂▃▃▄▄▅▅!"
He barely had time to dodge the discharge of magical energy that emerged from the improvised cannon. It destroyed another part of the door and managed to hit one of the walls of the room.
Kiritsugu landed on his back and grunted as he struggled to get up, on the other side of the door the homunculus seemed to be doing the same as his face began to regenerate.
"Damn it." Kiritsugu said. The homunculus' core was not in his head. It was surely located somewhere in his body, protected by the mass of his body.
The only good thing was that he might not be able to use that shot a second time, or else he would have already taken care of using it to destroy what was left of the door and the desk to finally enter the room.
...It wasn't as if it made much difference to what he was trying to do. The homunculus' long, thick arms pounded the wood with palpable force, while his head throbbed as if he were truly the victim of a frenzy.
He wouldn't have a full minute before it gave way and he'd be trapped in the room with it. He glanced at the window: It was an option, he could jump out of it and cushion the blow with the bushes, but the homunculus might try to track him, thus unleashing a chain of events that he wasn't sure he wanted to avoid.
The very idea of trying to destroy it again was far-fetched. With what? The Thompson Contender lacked sufficient firepower to kill it and he had nothing else but... He paused, before looking at a small package that had fallen out of his backpack. A semi-transparent package containing two bullets of a slightly smaller caliber than the ones the revolver was currently carrying.
But whose power was focused on another, much more lethal aspect. One that could very well be capable of stopping the homunculus in its tracks.
However... Wasting such a valuable resource when it could very well cost you dearly if you don't have it on hand in the future.
CRASH
"▂▂▃▃▄▄▅▅!"
One of the homunculus's arms shot out, the end transformed into a monstrous claw that sought to reach him, forcing Kiritsugu to move back.
The black-haired man gritted his teeth. He didn't have much time to decide, he had to hurry up and now.
And the homunculus almost seemed to be reading his thoughts because he immediately managed to emerge through what was left of the door, being merely impeded by the desk, much to the annoyance of the latter judging by the screams he was emitting,
"▂▂▃▃▄▄▅▅! ▂▂▃▃▄▄▅▅!"
Kiritsugu opened the package and removed one of the Origin Bullets before inserting it into the revolver's chamber as quickly as possible. A thud inside confirmed that it was ready to be used, and Kiritsugu pointed it at the desk ready to end it all.
CRACK
Only for it to shatter into multiple heavy pieces under the homunculus' force, several of which flew towards him. One particularly large piece flew into his hand and knocked the revolver out of Kiritsugu's hand much to the latter's horror while another narrowly missed stunning him by hitting his side.
"Ugh." Kiritsugu groaned as he brought a hand to his shoulder, where another fragment nearly became embedded, while he watched helplessly as the homunculus made its way through the wreckage inside the room towards him.
"▂▂▃▃▄▄▅▅"
The revolver was a couple of meters to his left, he would have to crawl fast enough to grab it, but the homunculus would not give him the luxury of waiting for him to aim.
That was it. I was screwed.
If he could cause a distraction of a few seconds, perhaps he could... But that miracle was not going to come.
He was going to die in that place, without even saying goodbye to Shirou.
Without having managed to cure Maiya.
Without having managed to save Illya.
'Iri, Maiya, Illya, Shirou... I'm so sorry.' Kiritsugu managed to close his eyes as he extended his right hand, only to wrap it around something.
With a last-minute surge of intrigue, Kiritsugu opened his eyes and looked at what he had grabbed. An orange opal, with a white effigy resembling the letter "F" engraved on it, stared back at him: The Ansuz Rune.
Noticing that the homunculus had not yet reached him, an idea occurred to him. It was a desperate gamble, but at this height it was the only thing he could do.
Kiritsugu firmly grabbed the runestone before throwing it towards the homunculus who looked at it awkwardly as it impacted with his body.
And then, all hell broke loose in the room.
As if he had been bathed in gasoline and then a match had been lit, a shroud of fire enveloped the homunculus' body as soon as the effects of the magic stone were activated.
"▂▂▃▃▄▄▅▅! ▂▂▃▃▄▄▅▅!"
The homunculus let out a series of agonized screams as it writhed uncontrollably, trying to uselessly put out the flames, all while Kiritsugu looked on almost in shock at the macabre spectacle. But then he noticed the revolver and crawled as best he could to get it while his opponent set his sights on it before trying to chase him, only for the flames to intensify their burn, causing him to fall to his knees.
Still, his head began to throb again and take on a certain shape for the second time.
Kiritsugu's right hand gripped the revolver's handle and his fingers reached for the trigger as he aimed. Just in time to see how the homunculus had transformed its head back into that cannon and was trying to charge up energy for one last shot.
"Swallow this." Kiritsugu growled, before firing.
The Origin Bullet penetrated the flaming barrel when it seemed to have reached its limit.
"▂▂▃▃▄▄▅▅!"
The shriek that arose this time was comparable to someone putting a microphone on sandpaper being dragged across a blackboard. The homunculus seemed to lose complete control of itself, uselessly beating the air if not itself. In the grip of an attack it could not understand and still a victim of the flames, it began to frantically tear off pieces of itself before suddenly stopping.
Its structure seemed to be losing shape, and it slowly began to melt as if it were a monstrous parody of a giant animated ice cream.
Kiritsugu watched the homunculus' death coldly but deep down, he couldn't help but feel a hint of compassion for its end.
Despite having the same form and cognition as humans, homunculi are ultimately different beings due to possessing a powerful Magic Circuit. Regardless of how fragile they are, their Magic Circuits make it possible for the homunculus to achieve powers beyond that of an ordinary human. Fundamentally different from Magi who are humans with Magic Circuits, homunculi are best defined as "Magic Circuits in human form" . Not "something made to be a magus" , but rather "something made to be a Magic Circuit" .
That's why they were especially vulnerable existences against his trump card.
Origin Bullets, special conceptual weapons that utilize Kiritsugu's Origin to its full extent by actualizing it within a target. The bullets were created from his first and second ribs on both sides that were cut off, extracted from his body, crushed into powder, condensed with thaumaturgy to preserve its essence, and sealed within sixty-six bullets as a core.
There are no wounds or bleeding when the bullet makes contact, but the targeted area or body part eventually suffers from something akin to necrosis. While it appears to have healed properly on the surface, the nerves and capillaries will never properly regenerate and the original function will be lost forever. While it would be bad for a living being to be hit by these, as a Concept Weapon, these bullets pose an even graver threat to magi in particular.
Origin Bullets will immediately affect magi upon contact with their thaumaturgy. When forced to defend themselves with it, the impact of the Origin within the bullet affects everything down to the practitioner's Magic Circuits. If a magus' circuits are a high-voltage power cable, then the impact of the bullet is comparatively a drop of water sticking to a densely placed electrical circuit. Once a conductive liquid sticks to it, the short-circuit current will destroy the circuit itself, resulting in permanent damage.
The more intense the pressure used to gather densely packed magical energy for defense, the more active the Magic Circuits will be at work at the moment of contact and the more severe the destructive power of the bullet will become.
Of the sixty-six bullets, thirty-seven have been used, and not a single one was wasted after completely destroying thirty-seven Magi. During the Grail War, he had access to the remaining twelve, and one of the Masters fell victim to the thirty-eighth.
There are only nine left. And so far, only one person has managed to nullify its effects.
But in the case of the poor homunculus, whose existence practically depended on those organs, he was doomed as soon as the bullet entered his body.
Kiritsugu stood up with some difficulty before walking over to what remained of the corpse to examine it closely.
A kind of skeleton melting in a white liquid that occasionally ended up in the form of small lumps that in turn melted like sand structures after being exposed to a wave.
Lumps of Ether.
Also described as Liquid Clay, they are failed attempts at materializing Ether through combining with one of the other elements. Under normal circumstances, Ether can only materialize after combining with one of the other elements. However, in some cases, mainly when there is some sort of failure on the part of the magus, it will take the physical form of a clay-like substance.
Aside from serving as a conductor of magical energy, it is completely useless. Whatever form a magus gives it, if left dormant for long enough (i.e. with no magical energy passing through it), it will eventually revert to its original clay form, just as was the case with the homunculus.
He could also see several crystalline splinters, all that was left of the orange opal that served as the runestone.
"Alchemy was also mentioned within the fields of Reiroukan," Kiritsugu realized as he frowned. "But where did this one come from and what was he doing?" He wondered as he began to trace his steps down the stairs to the ground floor, but not before picking up the backpack and the small bag of rune stones that had landed against one of the walls.
Using a couple of fragments of liquid clay that had been dripping from the colossus, he managed to trace more or less its path, confirming that it had emerged from the kitchen judging by a couple of footprints that came from there, but apart from that, nothing.
Maybe he should check out the rest of the rooms upstairs before moving on to the attic, Kiritsugu reasoned as he leaned against the wall and let out a sigh.
CLICK
Beneath the stairs, an entrance of sorts opened up, leading to a flight of stairs leading down. A sight that made Kiritsugu blink before letting out an exasperated huff.
Of course there was a secret basement too. How had he forgotten to look for such an obvious thing?
Shaking his head, Kiritsugu prepared to descend them.
It didn't take him long to hit rock bottom, and he wasn't all that impressed by the basement room that stretched out before him.
"Well, this is a magus' workshop," he confirmed to himself, glancing around the room. This one could very well be described with one word: Anachronistic.
Lit by a series of fluorescent crystals, the place was like some kind of ancient laboratory with several shelves full of flasks, vials and instruments of all kinds such as chalices, candlesticks and even a human skull with inscriptions engraved on its surface... But whose medieval atmosphere was broken by things like a couple of notebooks scattered around and even a pencil like the ones Shirou was trying to reinforce with a broken tip.
The Workshop was at least three times larger than the room on the second floor where he had found the familiar and the stones, and it was clear that the magus in charge of this property had taken great care to maintain it well.
With the exception of a desk against one wall, shelves, and what appeared to be a giant cauldron in the corner, there was too much free space in the place.
And when Kiritsugu looked down at the floor, he realized the reason why the room was in such a state.
A huge magic circle drawn in blood, liquid clay, and a series of metals he didn't bother to identify lay just below him. One much larger and more complex than the one Iri had drawn in the Emiya Residence's shed years ago.
And whose purpose was more than clear, it had been used to summon a Servant.
"Is this where you came from, Caster?" Kiritsugu wondered as he walked over to the desk, where one of the notebooks he had seen rested.
Right on the first page, someone had tried to draw two figures: One of a black-haired girl and some sort of woman in a white robe holding what looked like a potion in one hand, while the other held one of the girl's hands.
After sharpening his gaze on the drawing, he realized that he was looking at the spitting image of the Servant of the Fourth War's Spell, but what about the girl?
He got his answer after closing the notebook and looking at the name of its owner written on it: Misaya Reiroukan.
That surname. It was practically confirmed, he had been successful in his search.
If only the head of the poor devil Makihisa was looking to retrieve was there, things would have been easier, but no. Although the progress was immense, he couldn't deny it. Being able to investigate firsthand the last place where the location of said object had been confirmed was invaluable.
And speaking of that.
Kiritsugu began to go over the details he knew.
Saitou Reiroukan had used the mansion as a base of operations during the war, and had summoned Caster there. Apparently, he had felt confident enough to keep his daughter close by even with the danger of the event.
But at some point, had a Master broken through his defenses and managed to kill him? No, the corpse had been found outside. Unless his killers had carried him there and then disposed of him, Kiritsugu doubted such a thing had happened.
But if that was the case... Was it really a Master who had been tasked with making his way through the workshop?
And where was Caster when all that had happened?
Kiritsugu froze as he remembered that this Servant had been one of the last ones standing and had even stood up to Saber, with the King of Knights being the one to kill him. In theory, that should indicate that Saitou Reiroukan should have been alive at that time, being his Master.
...But what if it hadn't been that way?
I shook my head. Maybe he was exaggerating, I should be concentrating more on finding out where the head was, which must have remained unconnected to the conflict and somewhere in this place before being stolen along with other pieces.
Kiritsugu pulled a small vial from his backpack, much smaller than the others and filled with a different liquid. A small memento of his former mentor and adoptive mother.
And a tremendously useful tool in cases like this.
Muttering a few words in a language he barely knew, Kiritsugu dropped a few drops of liquid onto the ground. An extract made from the refined fluids of a succubus' body, it is an unorthodox tool for tracking and identifying magical energy signatures thanks to its properties.
The liquid immediately took on a dark hue, representing the signature of one of the magi who had been present, and began to split, forming a much darker drop of greater volume.
It was clear that this represented Caster.
A third drop separated from the first, having a minuscule size but with a texture almost identical to its parent. Kiritsugu immediately remembered the daughter of the Caster Master, but before he could think further about her, a fourth drop manifested.
Being larger than the first, but much smaller than the second, its hue was completely different from the three. It made the black-haired man narrow his eyes as he took an empty flask from his backpack and, through a simple spell, made the liquid that formed the drop end up inside it.
"There you are." He said, taking one last look inside before putting it back in his backpack. He already had what he believed to be the magical energy signature of the intruder in the Reiroukan lair. He just needed to compare it with the spell engraved on the door and he would be done.
But for his part, the hunt was just beginning.
It was essential that he look for answers directly elsewhere and Kiritsugu already had a good idea of where.
"Looks like I'll have to go to Tokyo earlier than planned."