...
"…Kiritsugu? Kiritsugu!"
"Natalia?"
Seeing Kiritsugu sinking deeper into his thoughts, Natalia hurriedly grabbed his shoulders and shook him awake.
"Stop dwelling on pointless thoughts. Make money! Make money!! Keep making money!!!" Natalia gave his shoulder a firm slap before warning him, "Don't forget what I told you when I promised to take you off that island."
"No matter what happens, survive by any means necessary."
"That's the iron rule I've lived by in this line of work."
"No matter what happens, your own life comes first."
"If you throw away your life trying to save someone else, then you've gained nothing."
"After all, only the living have the right to talk about justice. Once you're dead... there's nothing left."
After Natalia finished speaking, Kiritsugu silently lowered his head.
The image of the boy he once was overlapped with the young man he had become.
"I never believed I could save everyone."
"But even so..."
"I still want to save as many people as I can—even if it's just one more."
Hearing those exact same words again after all these years, Natalia let out a helpless sigh.
"You really haven't changed at all."
"Still just as foolish. Still just as idealistic."
"Hah... Do whatever you want."
...
One day...
While resting at one of their safehouses in Italy, Kiritsugu and Natalia received another bounty request through the telegraph, just as they always did.
Looking at the automatically printed dossier, Natalia sighed softly.
"This one's another troublesome target."
"This is..."
Kiritsugu, who had been organizing ammunition, walked over. His eyes immediately landed on two terms that felt both strangely familiar and completely foreign.
Ghouls.
Dead Apostles.
"You know about them?"
Kiritsugu looked toward Natalia.
She answered calmly,
"The magus Ord Vozzak is a Dead Apostle who breeds Ghouls by controlling bee-shaped Familiars. The Mage's Association has placed an enormous bounty on him."
"You certainly know a lot about him."
Kiritsugu accepted the file from her and began reading it carefully.
"In short, the scale of the devastation is massive. Every city he's stayed in has ended up becoming a complete wasteland."
"...An entire city."
The burning nightmare of Alimango Island flashed through Kiritsugu's mind.
He had never seen Natalia look this tense before.
Their opponent this time was clearly no ordinary prey.
"Phew..."
Anxiously, Natalia lit herself a cigarette.
Seeing that, Kiritsugu suddenly asked,
"Natalia... can I have one too?"
"Remind me," Natalia asked instinctively, "how old do you have to be before smoking is legal in your country?"
A moment later, she laughed and shook her head.
"Eh, forget it. You're fully grown now, so I suppose you're old enough."
"I'm not going to encourage it. This stuff's terrible for your health."
"Just don't smoke yourself to death."
"Your life belongs to me."
As she spoke, she pulled a fresh pack of cigarettes from her pocket, along with a lighter, and tossed both to him.
Kiritsugu caught them with both hands.
Imitating Natalia, he lit one for himself.
Then, without knowing any better, he took an enormous drag and inhaled it straight into his lungs.
"Cough! Cough! Cough!"
The harsh smoke rushed straight to his head, and Kiritsugu nearly coughed up his lungs.
"Hahahahahaha!"
Natalia burst into laughter, clutching her stomach.
"Kiritsugu, you always manage to make me laugh in the most unexpected ways!"
"Who smokes like that?"
"You'd need ten lives just to survive smoking like that! Hahahaha!"
She laughed so hard she couldn't stop.
Kiritsugu remained expressionless, but even he wasn't immune to embarrassment.
Without warning, he lunged at Natalia and tackled her to the floor.
Caught completely off guard, she had no chance to react.
Pinning both of her wrists above her head and using his weight to keep her from moving, Kiritsugu looked down at her and said flatly,
"Natalia."
"Apologize."
"Oh, come on~"
Natalia pouted.
"You were the one trying to look cool without asking how you're actually supposed to smoke."
"Apologize."
Like a broken record, Kiritsugu repeated the same word.
"Now that I think about it..."
Natalia looked him up and down.
"You've really grown into quite the handsome man."
"You're taller than I am now."
"And you've built up some nice muscles."
She poked his cheek with a finger.
"So..."
"Have you been secretly doing anything naughty behind my back at night?"
Kiritsugu brushed her finger aside with a shake of his head.
"No."
"Self-gratification has negative effects on physical performance."
"I don't have the spare time to waste on something so meaningless."
"Ehhh~~~"
Natalia deliberately dragged out the sound before grinning mischievously.
"But relieving stress every now and then is healthy."
"Maybe the reason you haven't improved lately is because you keep suppressing yourself."
"You're like a bowstring that's stretched tight every second of the day."
"If you keep it up..."
"One day, you're going to snap."
As she spoke, her teasing expression softened.
She gently cupped his cheek with unmistakable affection.
"So..."
"Do you want to?"
Kiritsugu frowned deeply.
"Want what?"
"Are you seriously this dense?"
Natalia stared at him in disbelief.
She had been dropping hints this obvious, and the kid still hadn't figured it out.
Maybe she'd failed as his adoptive mother.
Apparently she'd taught him everything about firearms...
...and absolutely nothing about sex education.
In fact, judging by Kiritsugu's obsession with guns, Natalia suspected that even his dreams probably involved pistols, sniper rifles, and mortars.
The image alone made her burst out laughing.
"Pfft—Hahahahaha!"
"What are you laughing at?"
"I just thought of something funny."
In any case...
To help Kiritsugu become a real man—
A true man—
Before setting out to hunt their troublesome bounty target, Natalia first took her beloved adopted son to one of Italy's most famous red-light districts.
The women there were consummate professionals.
If anyone knew how to teach a man to become a man, it was them.
Natalia deliberately explained nothing beforehand.
Kiritsugu initially assumed their target was hiding there, remaining on full alert the entire time.
Only after he emerged from one of the rooms with a face dark enough to rival thunderclouds did Natalia, who hadn't even had time to light another cigarette, instinctively glance toward a certain part of his body.
"No way..."
"Don't tell me they turned you into a quick draw already?"
A vein bulged on Kiritsugu's forehead.
Without saying a single word, he grabbed Natalia by the arm and dragged her away.
He was going to get his revenge.
Leon called this...
"Yūji Behavior."
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