"Little man…"
"I'm not little. Stop calling me that."
Climbing through the access panel above the airplane lavatory, Natalia crawled into the cargo compartment. She opened her suitcase, took out a concealed communications device, and contacted Kiritsugu once more.
"Fine, fine. Can you hear me, my dear Daddy Kiritsugu~?"
"…"
Kiritsugu fell silent instantly.
The nickname brought back some rather painful memories from not long ago. After a long pause, he finally replied,
"The signal is clear. Everything is normal."
"Then… good luck to both of us."
Kiritsugu, already in New York, and Natalia, still aboard the plane, spoke those words at the same time.
Leaving the lavatory, Natalia calmly returned to her seat as though nothing had happened.
Directly in front of her sat their target—the Dead Apostle Wozak, the man with short white hair.
To make the operation easier, Natalia had purchased all three seats in her row. Since the flight wasn't full and there were plenty of empty seats scattered throughout the cabin, it didn't attract any attention.
In fact, many of those vacant seats had also been bought by her beforehand to avoid suspicion.
Meanwhile—
Because of the six-hour time difference, it was still daytime in Paris, while New York had already fallen into the night.
Natalia's flight would arrive in New York six hours later, just as the sun was beginning to rise.
4:00 a.m.
Aside from night owls and the occasional all-nighter, this was the hour when people slept most deeply—the perfect time for an assassin like Kiritsugu to strike.
Inside a hotel room.
Several hundred meters away stood a luxurious five-star hotel.
Kiritsugu opened his suitcase and removed one cold, matte-black metal component after another, expertly assembling them into a Walther WA 2000 sniper rifle fitted with a suppressor.
Effective range: 800–1,000 meters.
Maximum range: 1,800 meters.
Once the rifle was assembled, he carefully loaded its detachable magazine with .300 Winchester Magnum rounds—an uncommon caliber for the WA 2000.
The magazine held only six rounds.
But he needed only one opportunity.
The WA 2000 was normally chambered for 7.62×51mm NATO ammunition. Kiritsugu had deliberately chosen .300 Winchester Magnum for its superior long-range accuracy.
He had to—and could only—end this with a single shot.
After locking the loaded magazine into place, Kiritsugu rested the rifle on the windowsill.
Closing one eye, he peered through the scope at Wozak's companion, who was leisurely brewing coffee by a window roughly six hundred meters away.
The lights in the room had long since been turned off.
The silence was so complete that he could even hear the muffled moans of a couple next door exploring each other's bodies.
"..."
Kiritsugu slowly exhaled.
Then, in an instant, he activated the personal bounded-field magecraft he had developed from his family's inherited time-manipulation magecraft.
"Time Alter!"
By accelerating his blood flow and muscle contractions, it allowed him to perform physical feats beyond normal human capability.
Conversely, by slowing his breathing and heartbeat, it minimized his body's interference with the outside world, reducing both his presence and the involuntary movements that could affect the precision of a sniper shot.
At the same time, Natalia began her part of the operation.
She simply traced several blood-red runes onto the back of Wozak's seat.
Bang!
At that exact moment, Kiritsugu's bullet pierced Wozak's associate's heart.
Only after confirming that the man's blood loss left absolutely no possibility of survival did Kiritsugu lower the rifle, disassemble it, and return every component to his suitcase.
Meanwhile, Wozak suddenly began convulsing silently in his seat.
Within moments, he appeared to age decades. Deep wrinkles spread across his face, blood trickled from his nostrils, and he died without making a sound.
After eliminating the target, Natalia summoned a flight attendant.
On the surface, it appeared she was asking for assistance.
In reality, she was using the attendant's presence to conceal Wozak's condition.
At the very least, no one could discover the death before the plane landed.
Otherwise, cleaning up afterward would become much more troublesome.
With practiced ease, she slipped back into the cargo hold through the lavatory access panel.
There, she located the silver briefcase containing the colony of "man-eating bees" that Wozak had checked into the cargo compartment.
While freezing the entire case with liquid nitrogen, she contacted Kiritsugu again.
The weight that had been hanging over her heart finally lifted.
"That was much easier than I expected."
"Same here," Kiritsugu replied. "The target was a textbook magus. Like most magi, he neglected conventional weapons in favor of guarding against magecraft. Being able to solve this with minimal force was the best possible outcome, Natalia."
"See? That's the beauty of firearms, Kiritsugu. Which is why you should keep practicing your shooting~"
Her words carried an unmistakable hint.
"…"
Kiritsugu had lost count of how many times Natalia had rendered him speechless.
"Haha~"
Smiling smugly, Natalia opened the silver briefcase that had been thoroughly chilled with liquid nitrogen.
Inside were giant yellow-and-black carnivorous bees, each roughly the size of an adult's thumb.
Every last one of them had frozen solid.
Just in case they somehow revived after the temperature rose again, Natalia took a bottle of thick, syrup-like potion from her luggage and poured it over the frozen corpses.
Moments later, ghostly blue flames engulfed the insects.
Within seconds, every single bee had been reduced to ash.
"So then, Kiritsugu," Natalia said in a more serious tone, "have you figured out how we're getting the body out of the passenger cabin?"
"I've already arranged transportation."
Having left the hotel, Kiritsugu was now driving an ambulance he had acquired through decidedly unofficial means toward the airport.
"All that's left is to escort the 'passenger who suddenly fell critically ill.' As long as a 'doctor' accompanies the patient, there shouldn't be any problems."
"Haha. As long as you don't mind me practicing medicine without a license."
Natalia chuckled before slipping into casual conversation.
"You know, this reminds me of that time when all you needed was a set of work overalls and a folding ladder to stroll into practically any residential complex."
"And don't forget when you impersonated government officials or safety inspectors. Watching all those property managers and security guards bend over backward to flatter you was absolutely hilarious."
"Indeed. It was rather absurd."
Kiritsugu rarely indulged her conversations, but this time he agreed.
"Over the years, I've come to understand one thing."
"Stability and order matter more than fairness and justice. As long as you understand that fact—and know how to exploit human nature—there is almost nothing you can't accomplish in ordinary human society."
"Well said, Daddy Kiritsugu."
"You're still so young, yet you've already reached the sort of conclusions most people spend a lifetime arriving at."
Natalia offered her praise without reservation.
Kiritsugu's understanding—and exploitation—of human nature had already surpassed her own.
Yet the deeper his understanding became…
…the more disappointed he grew with humanity itself.
Without an overwhelming external force compelling them—
human beings would never truly understand one another.
A world of absolute peace…
was nothing more than an unattainable dream.
"…"
Kiritsugu fell silent once again.
Partly because of Natalia's unbearable nickname for him—
and partly because he felt only despair for humanity's present... and its future.
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