It was precisely because of such a wretched past that when Maiya Hisau first met Irisviel, she had been astonished—and quietly healed—by Irisviel's warmth, sincerity, and the untouched purity that had never been tainted by the world.
Born and raised within Einzbern Castle, Irisviel had never even seen the outside world. Yet she had willingly embraced Kiritsugu Emiya's dream of changing the world, fighting with everything she had in her own way to help make that dream a reality.
To be honest...
Maiya envied Irisviel.
Maiya had arrived where she was only after enduring all the filth the world had to offer. Irisviel, on the other hand, had possessed everything from the very beginning.
Status. Wealth. Influence. Beauty. Ability. A daughter.
And the love of the man named Kiritsugu Emiya.
Even if that love had begun as part of a carefully arranged fabrication, Maiya still couldn't help but envy her.
Gradually, she began to see Irisviel as another version of herself from a different timeline—a self who, despite being fated for destruction, had effortlessly obtained the happiness and warmth she herself had only ever dreamed of.
Even that inevitable fate of destruction...
To Maiya, it was a blessing she could never hope to receive.
Because it allowed Irisviel to become the indispensable cornerstone of Kiritsugu's dream.
After that...
Death no longer mattered.
And yet...
After fighting alongside Irisviel with those very feelings in her heart, Maiya couldn't help but feel that Irisviel had betrayed both Kiritsugu... and herself.
At least, that was how Maiya saw it.
Perhaps...
Irisviel had never truly understood Kiritsugu's dream.
She had never truly understood the world he wished to create.
Because if she had...
She would never have betrayed it.
The ideals she claimed as her own had merely been a clumsy imitation of Kiritsugu's.
She had always encouraged him.
Always affirmed him.
Always said that his ideals were worth sacrificing her life for.
But in the end...
She had merely been pretending to be the one person who truly understood him.
Simply because she hadn't wanted to lose the first friend who had ever come to her from the outside world.
Yet now...
She had so easily found another friend for whom she was willing to give her life—everything she had.
"How unfair... Iris."
Maiya gently pressed her lips together, a look of quiet acceptance appearing on her face.
She shouldn't be jealous of Irisviel anymore.
Because she already possessed everything she had ever wanted.
All that remained was to witness the end...
Together with the man beside her.
"Kiritsugu, where are we going next?"
Sitting in the driver's seat with her seatbelt fastened, Maiya looked at Kiritsugu through the rearview mirror as he silently occupied the back seat.
"...Right."
"Give me a moment."
Kiritsugu closed his eyes and rubbed the bridge of his nose before raising his right hand.
On the back of it were the crimson sword-shaped Command Seals that marked him as Saber's Master.
All three remained intact.
Since Artoria had yet to participate in a single battle, none of her Master's Command Seals had been consumed.
Now...
Two of them began to glow faintly.
As Kiritsugu quietly spoke the incantation, the two Command Seals slowly vanished.
"By the authority of Kiritsugu Emiya, I invoke my Command Seals.
Saber...
Forget the command I am about to give you.
When the appointed time arrives... carry it out."
Maiya listened as Kiritsugu completed the forced mental suggestion imposed upon Artoria through the Command Seals.
"...Is this really for the best?"
There was a trace of reluctance in her voice.
"It doesn't matter."
"The young knight who spent her entire life disguising herself as a man... who suppressed her heart as a young woman until the very moment of her death... who never once experienced the love between a man and a woman..."
"Now she has completely fallen into the ideal love she always longed for."
"With nothing more than these three Command Seals..."
"...How many times can I force her to betray her own heart?"
"Everything is a necessary sacrifice in the pursuit of justice... and lasting peace."
Kiritsugu answered mechanically, like a puppet whose soul had long since disappeared.
If the future Shirou Emiya—and the Counter Guardian EMIYA—worked for the Counter Force...
Then Kiritsugu Emiya, at this point in his life...
Had become the Counter Force itself.
"Maiya."
"Yes?"
Kiritsugu quietly named a destination.
Maiya nodded in surprise before immediately starting the car and driving toward it.
...
Late that night—
Fuyuki Church.
Wearing a priest's cassock and the silver cross of the Holy Church around his neck, Kirei Kotomine stood with his hands behind his back.
Somewhat surprised, he turned toward the man he had been searching for all this time—
The man who had instead come to him of his own accord tonight.
With his deep, magnetic voice carrying unmistakable delight, he smiled.
"Kiritsugu Emiya... This is our first proper meeting, isn't it?"
"Saber's Master."
"Kirei Kotomine. Formerly Assassin's Master... now Archer's Master."
Kiritsugu spoke without preamble.
"Tell me..."
"Is your father's soul still lingering by your side?"
As he spoke, his gaze repeatedly drifted toward a seemingly empty spot behind Kirei—a place where an overwhelming presence could nevertheless be felt.
"...Now that is unexpected."
Kirei raised an eyebrow.
"I believed I had handled everything cleanly enough that no third person would ever learn the truth."
After a brief flash of surprise, an unconcealed smile of pleasure spread across his face.
"No."
"I only said it as a guess."
"I didn't expect you to admit it so readily."
Kiritsugu's expression remained completely unchanged.
Outside the church, hidden atop a nearby tree, Maiya had already leveled her sniper rifle—equipped with an infrared night-vision scope—directly at Kirei's head.
"...What?"
Kirei frowned deeply.
He couldn't tell whether Kiritsugu's words had been nothing more than a bluff...
Or a far crueler truth.
Either way...
The man he had admired from afar had not disappointed him.
Kiritsugu Emiya was unlike anyone else.
And now...
Kirei found himself even more eager to discover what kind of sparks would be born when the two of them finally collided.
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