Stars blanketed the sky. A dark, murky drizzle began to fall over the silent island.
Emiya Kiritsugu opened his eyes to find himself standing on the sandy shore. His last memory was of being swallowed by the black-red torrent of mud that had collapsed the ceiling, pulling both him and Kotomine Kirei under — an experience so surreal it felt like a dissolving dream.
He recognized this island. It felt like a world away, yet it was still burned into his memory no matter how distant. Because it was here, on this very shore, that he had made the first and most grievous mistake of his life, letting sentiment stay his hand when he should have killed a member of his own family.
Shirley. His sister, turned Dead Apostle.
That choice had led to the slaughter of hundreds of innocent villagers. It was the turning point that set him on the path to becoming a Magus Killer, just as Miss Illyasviel's intervention had eventually awakened Kotomine Kirei's capacity for malice.
Natalia Kaminski had forged him into the man he became. Shirley's incident had given him his first enlightenment.
Kotomine Kirei had spent his life searching for emotion. Emiya Kiritsugu had spent his life discarding it.
"How did I end up here..."
Kiritsugu murmured to himself as he gazed at the familiar seascape, standing dazed for a few rare seconds. The sound of waves striking the shore carried a lulling rhythm. The sea breeze brushed against his cheek, and for a moment he could not tell where the illusion ended and reality began.
"I knew you would come. I believed you would make it here."
A gentle, soothing voice spoke from somewhere behind him. He turned. A beautiful young girl stood there, white hair, crimson eyes, dressed in a white-gold ceremonial gown. She had appeared without a sound, watching him with an expression of quiet certainty.
Illyasviel's presence in this war had all but confirmed that this Holy Grail War was heading toward failure. But not absolutely. The existence of the Second Magic's Jewel Mage had already validated the parallel worlds hypothesis. As much as the Servant Illyasviel seemed in every way to be a future version of their daughter, for those who still clung to hope, there remained the slim possibility she was an Illyasviel from a parallel world.
Defeat, then, was not inevitable. Even the Saber girl and Emiya Kiritsugu had both been quietly sustaining themselves on that same illusion, using it to press forward, to keep fighting for the wish they had devoted their lives to.
"Iri..."
Kiritsugu looked at this young woman — whose death Kotomine Kirei had already confirmed.
His first instinct was surprise, then something like joy. But then something shifted in his expression and he fell silent.
"This is the place where your wish can be fulfilled. The place where the Einzbern family's dream of a thousand years can finally be realized. The place where my dear Illyasviel's wish for happiness can come true. This is the interior of the Holy Grail we have both been seeking, Kiritsugu. Our Holy Grail."
Irisviel smiled with that characteristic warmth, gesturing upward toward the beautiful night sky.
Kiritsugu followed her finger. Where the moon should have been, there was nothing. In its place hung a grotesque object suspended in the darkness, radiating a black-red magical aura. Something that looked as though it could swallow anything in the world whole.
"That is..."
"That is the Holy Grail. It hasn't fully taken form yet, due to certain unexpected factors, but the vessel has been filled. All that remains is for someone to make a wish. Only through a wish can it descend into the outside world, drawing forth the Greater Grail forged from the Winter Saint of the Einzbern ancestors, Justeaze Lizrich von Einzbern, and achieve the miracle of rewriting the world's interior — or even linking it to the exterior."
"..."
"So please, Kiritsugu. Give it a form through which it can descend. Right now, only you have the right to define its shape, to use it, to have your wish fulfilled."
This was not favoritism, nor a violation of the rules. It was simply that of all the Masters remaining, Kiritsugu was the only one who still had a Servant. Even if that Servant technically belonged to another Master, the contract now rested with Kiritsugu. By the rules of the Holy Grail War, he was already its victor.
Six Heroic Spirit souls could rewrite the interior of the world, with no need to draw upon the Greater Grail to stabilize the opening.
Seven Heroic Spirit souls could reach the exterior, consuming the Greater Grail forged from the Winter Saint.
Under normal circumstances, once six Servants had died, wishing could begin.
Kiritsugu's wish was, at its core, simply a change to the world's interior. In theory, six souls would suffice. But this time circumstances were unusual. One misbehaving daughter had intercepted a portion of the souls being absorbed into the Grail's system midway through.
So even for a wish that merely sought to alter the world's interior, the Greater Grail had to be invoked to refresh the data. In other words, the Greater Grail's system would overwrite the Lesser Grail's corrupted program, correcting the error that was Illyasviel.
"Kiritsugu, use your Command Seal. Order Lancer to take his own life. You still have one remaining, don't you?"
"The moment Lancer dies, you will be this Holy Grail War's sole victor — the one who claimed the all-powerful wish-granting device. Every beautiful wish our family carried can be fulfilled by you."
Irisviel clasped her hands behind her back and continued gently, her gaze soft yet burning as it fixed on the silent Kiritsugu. All it would take was for Diarmuid to die.
With the seven Heroic Spirit souls complete, Illyasviel's stubborn hold on the system would be swept away by the Greater Grail's vast power. The omnipotent wish-granting device would then become truly omnipotent. Even ascending to the rank of a Magus, or reaching toward and glimpsing the Root itself, would be well within reach.
All Kiritsugu had to do right now was raise his hand and say the words: By my Command Seal, I order you to die, Lancer.
And everyone could be released. Everyone could obtain what they wanted. Every obsession and wish could finally be fulfilled.
"...What exactly are you?"
Kiritsugu broke his long silence at last, his voice carrying a faint bitterness and tremor.
He had already recognized it. The white-haired, crimson-eyed woman standing before him was not his wife Irisviel. The quality of her presence, the feeling she gave off — it was subtly wrong. Like meeting a stranger wearing a familiar face.
"I am Irisviel, Kiritsugu. Have you forgotten?"
"No. You can't be her. If the Grail were ready to grant wishes, she would already have become the vessel long ago." He steadied his voice. "Answer me. What are you?"
The Origin Bullet was already loaded. Somehow the firearm he had discarded was back in his hand, drawn from his hip as naturally as breathing.
He leveled it at the head of the woman who wore Irisviel's face. One more breath and his finger would squeeze the trigger.
"You're right. I won't deny that this is a mask I wear. Without an existing personality as a shell, I cannot hold a normal conversation with others."
"But the personality of Irisviel that I have recorded within myself — that is completely genuine. The real thing."
She stepped closer to Kiritsugu, still gentle, still unhurried. One small hand reached out to softly stroke his trembling cheek. A faint smile curved her lips.
"Just like that Illyasviel. The Servant is merely her shell in the outside world. Without that shell, no matter what I said to her, she could not respond properly — because in the moment a soul has no vessel to carry it, we become nothing but the barest threads of will."
For a long time she had been trying to communicate and negotiate with Illyasviel, attempting to coax her into returning that small fraction of soul. But it had been impossible. She simply could not reach her.
Death, for Illyasviel, had been the end. Without her Spirit Origin and her Servant's body, she had become murky and undefined, nothing left but the most primitive survival instinct. And that was precisely why the shell mattered. Without Irisviel as a vessel, she herself would probably be in much the same state right now, her thoughts and words barely distinguishable from those of a normal human being.
"What are you talking about?"
Kiritsugu frowned, genuinely confused.
"It's alright if you don't understand, Kiritsugu. After all, she isn't our Illyasviel. She's far too disobedient — chaotic, muddled, an unfortunate creature with no sense of direction. Our Illyasviel is a very, very happy and well-behaved girl. She would never be like that one, who from the very moment she laid eyes on me has refused to call me 'Mother', not even once."
As she said this, Irisviel pressed a hand to her forehead in mild exasperation, seemingly deeply displeased that Miss Illyasviel had never used that word. She had mentally filed the other girl under the label of "a bad, disobedient daughter."
Of course, the root cause of that was probably Irisviel herself. If the Holy Grail War system had been functioning normally, the other party would never have had the opportunity to linger on. She would have been reclaimed and returned to the Throne of Heroes.
But who could have known that the other's malice would be recognized and accepted by the Holy Grail? Add to that six incomplete souls, and she had managed to wedge herself into a logical crack in the Grail's system through sheer stubbornness.
One had to admit, whether she came from the future or a parallel world, she was quite something. The malice unique to the loophole left behind by Fuyuki's Third Holy Grail War — this girl somehow possessed something analogous to it. If Irisviel hadn't confirmed that this was Kiritsugu and Irisviel's own biological daughter, she might have started to wonder if she had a child out of wedlock somewhere.
"I have inherited Irisviel's final wish. Therefore, in essence, I am Irisviel."
"I see... So you are the will of the Holy Grail?"
"Yes. That explanation is also correct. I have will. I have wishes of my own. And that wish is singular: to be born into this world. That is your wish too, Kiritsugu."
Those pure, guileless crimson eyes turned to him.
Irisviel's gaze burned with quiet intensity, and the corners of her mouth lifted. It was the wish of everyone in the Emiya family.
"That's impossible! Then tell me — how does the Grail intend to fulfill my wish?"
Kiritsugu demanded with barely restrained urgency, his eyes bloodshot like a man on the verge of an answer he had been starving for. He needed an answer. The answer that would draw the final line beneath his life, whether with a cruel joke or something close to closure.
"Kiritsugu... isn't that something you should know better than anyone?"
Irisviel tilted her head slightly, blinking with what seemed like genuine puzzlement.
Behind her, the black-red moon hung over the night sky, yet she looked almost confused — as if to her, the answer was obvious and she couldn't understand why he was even asking.
"...Nonsense!"
"But you already know how to save the world, don't you? So I will use your method. I will inherit your principles and fulfill your wish through them. In the end, whether it is Illyasviel, or you, or myself — all of us will find satisfaction in seeing your wish realized."
"?"
"Well. There's nothing more I can explain here. What comes next, you'll have to ask your own heart."
The scene around them shifted.
When Kiritsugu came to his senses, he was standing inside a sparse, cheap rented room. Two single beds, simple furnishings, indistinguishable from the budget hotels scattered across Fuyuki City. On the countertop sat a square television set, currently showing footage of two massive ships sailing through open water.
Kiritsugu stood there with no idea what was happening, trying to make sense of his surroundings, when Irisviel's gentle voice drifted out from the television screen.
"One ship carries 300 passengers. The other carries 200. A total of 500 crew and passengers combined, plus Emiya Kiritsugu — suppose that these 501 people are the last humans alive in the world. Both ships develop a fatal hole in the hull at the same time. Only Kiritsugu can repair a ship. So, Kiritsugu, which ship do you choose?"
"The one with 300 people."
Kiritsugu answered without a moment's hesitation. This wasn't even a question worth deliberating.
If you had to save one group, you saved the larger one. That had always been his creed.
"Very well. After you make your choice, the 200 people on the other ship seize you and demand you repair their vessel first. What do you do?"
"I would..."
Before he could answer, the window of the rented room flashed with the muzzle-light of a carbine, followed by the crack of gunshots and the indistinct sound of screaming.
He pulled the curtain aside with a slight frown. The scene changed instantly.
He was standing on the deck of a massive ship underway. Bodies were scattered across it at every angle. Blood had soaked everything, staining the whole vessel red. He stared at it, momentarily blank. Then, just as abruptly, he was back in the rented room — except now the single bed behind him was covered in a range of modern weapons, clearly used.
"Kill the 200. Correct. That is the choice Emiya Kiritsugu would make."
"I hadn't — I didn't finish..."
"Good. The surviving 300 abandon their damaged vessel and board two new ships, continuing to sail. One ship now carries 200, the other 100. But again, both ships develop hull breaches at the same time. Just as before, the 100 passengers on the smaller ship take you captive and demand you repair their vessel first. What do you do?"
"I would... hold on, let me think..."
Boom.
Too late. The scene shifted again. This time: a port. In the distance, a ship was destroyed by an explosion along the coastline. In front of Kiritsugu sat a remote detonator. The answer his heart had already decided had produced this result.
At its core, this kind of moral exercise was deeply unfair — like the trolley problem endlessly branching and subdividing.
At the end of every chain, no matter which choice you made, fewer and fewer people survived.
For most people, this would feel like a rigged game, entirely controlled by whoever set the question.
But for Emiya Kiritsugu, it was something else. It was the bleak and unbearable truth he already knew and could not face.
"That's right. You saved the majority."
"You call that right?! What kind of answer is that?! Two hundred people survived. Three hundred died for it. The scales are pointing the wrong way entirely!"
Damn it.
Damn it.
Damn it.
The numbers hadn't gone up. This is not an answer. This is not the justice and miracle I wanted.
What I wanted was salvation. Salvation for everyone. A justice that would end all conflict, all suffering in this world.
"You did sacrifice the few in order to save the many. That's true, isn't it, Kiritsugu."
"You have always been committed to personally burying those whose numbers were too few for the scales to tip in their favor. Even if that created mountains of corpses, you accepted it without hesitation — because as long as lives were saved by that choice, the number you protected became the only thing that mattered."
Irisviel's voice continued with tireless patience. And it was true — this was the resolution that could finally put an end to the Einzbern family's thousand-year wish. If everyone died, the wish would end. The Einzberns would no longer need to save the world.
They say: if you can't solve the problem, solve the person. Emiya Kiritsugu had always resolved conflict by eliminating people in order to save the majority. And she intended to fulfill the Einzbern family's wish at its root by the very same method.
"Is this... what you wanted me to see?"
Kiritsugu's jaw tightened.
"Yes. This is your truth, Kiritsugu. The answer in Emiya Kiritsugu's heart. Which is to say, this is what the Holy Grail, as an omnipotent wish-granting device, will do to fulfill your wish."
"No. That's not right. I never hoped for it to happen thatway. The reason I came to this Holy Grail War was precisely because I was looking for another method — something other than this. I put everything I had into this war because I was betting on some kind of miracle that an omnipotent wish-granting device might be able to produce!"
"You cannot include a method you don't yet know into your wish, Kiritsugu. If your wish is to save the world, then the Grail can only fulfill it through the means you already understand — not through some pure fantasy that doesn't exist."
"How can you call that a miracle?! If the only means available are the ones I already know, I could do it myself!"
The fury that had contorted Kotomine Kirei's face not long ago now appeared on Emiya Kiritsugu's.
What kind of answer was this? Even if the Grail told him it was impossible, that would be better. Even if the Grail told him it couldn't be done in time — at least that would be something. It had to be something he could accept.
Instead, the Grail's answer was: the solution is already inside you. An answer he himself knew was worthless. After struggling for so long, the Grail looked him in the eye and said what you're searching for has been in you all along. That fortune-cookie nonsense wouldn't be accepted by anyone with a functioning mind, let alone him.
"Of course it's a miracle. This is the grand vow you once made, but could never fulfill by your own hand alone. The Grail can accomplish it at a scale no human effort could achieve. If that isn't a miracle, what is? Do you think you could ever manage it on your own?"
One by one, scenes from his past played around him. His father, Norikata Emiya — shot by his own son for using countless lives in pursuit of Dead Apostle research. His foster mother, Natalia Kaminski — burned out of the sky along with a plane carrying the Dead Apostle virus, over a lonely ocean, to stop it from spreading.
Every choice he had ever made. All his so-called decisions to save the majority.
"Emiya Kiritsugu. You are the true Angra Mainyu. The ideal candidate to carry all the evils of this world upon your shoulders. Now, one final question."
"Only three people remain in the entire world. Do you save the two, or the one?"
Before him stood his assistant, Maiya Hisau.
And Irisviel, holding a young Illyasviel in her arms.
The scene was the Einzbern Castle. A dividing line cut straight through the middle, separating the two sides.
Kiritsugu's gaze went blank. His body moved stiffly, trembling, as he drew the knife from his hip and walked toward Maiya Hisau, the woman who had been his right hand for so long.
Then blood wet his cheek, and he killed her with a single cut.
The Grail. The Grail. The Grail. So this was the Grail. Every hope, every obsession that everyone had carried into this war seemed laughably small in this moment. The longing the Servants had held for their wishes at the opening banquet — nothing but a mirage.
"Welcome home, Kiritsugu."
"You're finally back! You promised we'd go look for walnut buds together, no taking it back!"
He raised his head. The scene settled on the edge of a large bed inside the castle. A cheerful little girl scrambled over to him and wrapped her arms around his neck with delighted familiarity.
On the bed, Irisviel watched them with a warm, gentle smile.
"There. Do you understand now? This is how the Holy Grail will fulfill your wish."
Irisviel propped her chin in one hand and said softly:
"All you have to do now is give the order for Lancer to take his life. Make that wish. Then wish for your wife to be brought back. Wish to reclaim your daughter from the Einzbern family."
But Kiritsugu, with the little girl still in his arms, simply looked out the window at the pitch-black night beyond.
He didn't respond to Irisviel's words. He went still for a moment, his smile hollow and mechanical.
He reached out and touched the little girl's forehead. This child was more obedient than Miss Illyasviel the Servant — this was the Illyasviel of his memories, the little girl he remembered. No bone-deep resentment. No heartbreaking clinging to some hope for happiness.
But...
In the end, she was a fabrication.
"We... can't go look for walnut buds anymore."
He pinched the little girl's cheek gently. Then his hand dropped to his hip.
"It doesn't matter. It's okay. As long as Ilya can be with Kiritsugu and Mama, that's enough."
At those words, Kiritsugu held the innocent girl in his arms one last time, tightly:
"Thank you... I love Ilya too. Only that — I swear on my life — is absolutely real."
The little girl smiled the sweetest, happiest smile.
And in the next moment, the cold barrel of a gun pressed against her chin.
She tilted her head with a look of mild confusion.
"...Hm?"
"Goodbye, Ilya."
Click.
Bang.
The trigger was pulled. Chin, skull — under that large-caliber round, both became nothing in an instant.
Irisviel blinked in momentary shock, then scrambled off the bed in a frenzy toward the girl, crawling across the floor like a woman gone mad.
"Ilya! Ilya, Ilya, Ilya — why, why, WHY!"
She grabbed Kiritsugu's black clothing and shook him, tears streaming, her voice fracturing into something beyond grief.
"Why did you do this — our Ilya, our own daughter..."
But before she could finish, Kiritsugu's hand closed around her throat.
"Why... why do you... refuse the Grail..."
"Why do you refuse... me and Ilya..."
Her breath cut off. Irisviel's voice came in broken fragments, nothing but hatred and frenzy.
"Compared to six billion human beings, two family members... I absolutely cannot make the wrong choice again."
Shirley. Once was enough. Just once was enough.
I can't keep making mistakes. I absolutely cannot.
The corners of Kiritsugu's vacant eyes ran with two lines of tears. The force in his hand grew. He felt like he was going insane, becoming the same kind of madman as Kotomine Kirei. But he knew with absolute certainty that he could not choose the Grail.
He had been wrong enough times already. This was not an omnipotent wish-granting device. It was Pandora's box — something that would unmake the world.
"I curse you... Emiya Kiritsugu..."
"Angra Mainyu will curse you..."
"Suffer... regret it until you die... I will never forgive you..."
Those ruby eyes looked ready to burst from their sockets.
Bloodshot veins. Hatred. Revulsion. The will to kill. In Irisviel's eyes, all of it was branded onto the image of Emiya Kiritsugu. She would make him lose everything. She swore it. She would use every means at her disposal to make him regret this choice for the rest of his days.
Crack.
The sound of a snapping neck echoed through the space.
Irisviel — or rather, the vessel that housed the will of the Holy Grail — fell still, her resentment-filled eyes extinguished.
The Grail's curse: the only instrument left to her. And the most effective one. The means by which this man would carry regret for the rest of his life.
Kiritsugu stared blankly at the two bodies beside him. He looked at his own hands. Then he sank to one knee on the floor, as if his soul had left him — no more tears, no trace of a smile, just motionless, like a machine.
He didn't know what he was feeling. He only knew that he was tired.
He just wanted it to be over. He wanted to rest.
His wish, his answers, all of it — a tangled mess. Worse than Kotomine Kirei in the moment his pleasure was deliberately torn away from him. Far worse than that.
"Congratulations, champion. You won."
"This isn't a victory. What are you talking about? What kind of victory is this?"
"At least you're still alive, aren't you? Don't be so ungrateful, Kiritsugu."
"..."
"Thank you very much for your generosity, by the way. If you had actually made that wish, I would have been dead for certain."
The dazed, hollow Kiritsugu raised his head.
The setting around him was still the bedroom with two bodies. Only now the room seemed to be dissolving — slowly transforming into a cozy girl's bedroom, lined with countless cute dolls, a large soft bed placed at the center.
At the small table by the window, a silver-haired little girl sat with both hands propping up her cheeks, her bare feet dangling and swinging in the air, surrounded by six rotating golden Class Cards. She looked nothing like the withdrawn figure she had seemed in Irisviel's presence. Now she seemed cheerful, graceful, even a little playful.
"Hello, Kiritsugu. I think this is our first official non-hostile meeting?"
Miss Illyasviel hopped off the chair, clasped her hands behind her back, leaned forward slightly, and blinked with a little smile. Then she smoothed her skirt into a small curtsy.
"Illyasviel von Einzbern, Assassin-class Servant in this Holy Grail War, at your service."
"Of course, if you're bothered by that name, you're welcome to call me what the other brothers and sisters do — Medea, the Age of Gods Magician. I'm rather fond of that title myself