Chapter 56 – Emiya Kiritsugu

Sleep doesn't do much to fix my exhaustion.

After bickering with Cath Palug until who-knows-what hour last night, I finally pass out from sheer burnout.

My mind lingers in that murky, half-asleep state where you lose track of time and just want to stay buried under the blankets forever, but slowly, reality starts creeping in. Or rather, a weird sense of panic does.

I try to take a breath, but the air just won't reach my lungs. My chest feels tight, and in that sluggish daze between sleep and waking up, my brain can't figure out why my breathing has suddenly become so difficult.

Every time I try to inhale through my nose, I just end up with a mouthful of warm, ticklish fuzz.

I groan, dragging a slow arm up from under the sheets to wipe my face, but instead of brushing away a tangled blanket or a pillow, my hand smacks right into a warm, soft lump parked directly over my mouth and nose.

"Mmph-get off-!"

I shove with both hands, rolling the lump off my face. Cool air rushes into my lungs, and I shoot straight up in bed, coughing and sputtering as I frantically wipe stray white hairs off my lips and tongue.

Sitting at the edge of the bed, completely unbothered by being tossed aside, is Cath Palug.

He curls his tail neatly around his paws and stares at me like I'm the rude one for disturbing him.

I rub my sore eyes and glare at him, my voice still rough and raspy from just waking up. "Are you trying to kill me in my sleep?".

"Fou."

A tiny, innocent chirp is all I'm going to get from him. I let out a long breath and look toward the window where sunlight is already coming in past the curtains.

My headache from last night is finally gone, but I just know today is gonna be a long, long day.

"Usually you already disappear when I wake up. It's rare to see you still here," I say, stretching a bit before moving to the edge of the bed to stand up.

"Fou, fou."

"So you already finished doing whatever you do, and now you're staying with me? Well, I don't mind, but things get dangerous sometimes. If something happens, can you promise to run away or hide somewhere?" I offer both of my palms to him. He steps forward and sits right on them, allowing me to carefully lift him up.

"Fou," he chirps, giving a small nod as I'm moving him up to my shoulder.

"Good." With him perched securely on my shoulder, I head to the bathroom to brush my teeth and wash my face.

I want to take a real bath, but I don't have any clean clothes to replace the ones I've been wearing since yesterday afternoon.

I completely forgot about all the shopping we did yesterday. After Irisviel fell unconscious, we hurried straight back to the castle and ended up leaving all the clothes and other stuff we bought behind.

I really hope someone was kind enough to put those bags in the mall's lost and found. If not, Irisviel just wasted all that money on me for nothing.

Leaving the bedroom, the first thing I need to do is check on Kiritsugu. When he was sleeping yesterday, he looked like an actual corpse.

After walking down the hallway for a few moments, I arrive in front of his door. I raise my hand to knock, but I stop when I hear voices coming from inside.

"Do you hear that?" I whisper to Cath Palug.

"Fou..."

"I know, it seems like they're having a conversation. You know what that means, right?"

"Fou?" He tilts his head, clearly not understanding.

"It's time to eavesdrop!" I immediately kneel in front of the door, pressing my ear against the wood. To make sure I catch every word, I even use a quick spell to enchant my sense of hearing.

"...explain yourself, Saber," Kiritsugu's voice comes through, dry and breathless. A faint click follows as he sparks a lighter.

"My Magic Circuits ignited without warning. All my Od was pulled out of me in seconds before I lost consciousness. I wake up in this bed with my Command Seals gone, and you standing under a new contract with that child. What happened?"

"You nearly died, Kiritsugu," Artoria cuts in. Her tone is cold and distant. "I lost control of myself. Had the contract remained linked to you, your Magic Circuits would have burned out completely and stopped your heart."

"Why?" Kiritsugu demands, followed by a harsh cough. "You are the King of Knights. You do not simply lose control like that. Did that child subject you to mental interference?"

"Mind your tongue," Artoria answers sharply. "You know the rank of my Magic Resistance. No modern magecraft could ever bypass it to sway my mind. My failures are entirely my own."

"Then why did you surrender the contract to an eight-year-old?" Kiritsugu asks, his voice tight with suspicion. "You swore an oath to win the Holy Grail. Now you stand guard over a child. You expect me to believe you threw away your wish of your own free will?"

"I abandoned my mistake," Artoria replies evenly. "The Holy Grail is not the wish-granting device you believe it to be. Reina showed me what that vessel actually holds. If I had used its power to rewrite the fall of Camelot, it would have yielded nothing but destruction."

Silence drops over the room.

"Absurd," Kiritsugu mutters, his voice dropping low. "The Fuyuki Grail is a vessel constructed over two centuries by the Founding Three. You expect me to believe an eight-year-old exposed a fatal flaw in a ritual magi have spent generations perfecting?"

"Believe what you wish," Artoria says dismissively.

Huh. It seems like they're having a really intense argument in there. Maybe I should just leave and talk to them later.

But before I can pull my ear away from the wood, Fou suddenly jumps up from my shoulder and winds up a kick.

"FOUUU!"

"What the-!?"

With a small thud of his little leg hitting the wood, the door somehow pops open. But it opens way too fast, and since I'm still leaning all my weight against it, I completely lose my balance and fall forward.

"Kyaaaa!"

With a dull thud, my right cheek hits the floor hard, making it throb with a sharp pain.

"Ow, ow, ow..." I stay on the floor for a moment, rubbing my right cheek in an attempt to make the pain go away.

"What the hell is your problem? Why did you suddenly kick the door open?" I glare over my shoulder at Cath Palug, who is just sitting there looking back at me with the most innocent expression possible.

"Fou."

"Huh? Behind me?" I turn my head back around and freeze.

I turn around, and immediately find everyone in the room staring at me, including Kiritsugu and his assistant, Maiya.

"...hello?"

"Reina, are you okay? You hit the floor really hard just now." Irisviel is the one who reacts first, standing up from where she was seated near the bed and hurrying over to me.

She kneels in front of me and picks me up easily. Seeing her move so smoothly and lift me without any trouble means the magic circuit graft I put on her chest is working perfectly.

But instead of just helping me stand up, Irisviel actually carries me up in her arms!

"Wha-wha?? Irisviel, put me down!"

"Shh, it's fine. You hit your cheek pretty hard. Here, let me soothe it for you." Supporting my weight with one arm, she uses her free hand to softly caress my bruised cheek.

Wow... I literally just rubbed my own cheek a second ago, but it feels completely different when someone else does it.

Her hand is so warm and gentle. I want to squirm away and act tough, but honestly, it feels kind of nice.

There is this soft, comforting scent around her, and the way she holds me makes me feel incredibly safe.

It's a strange, fuzzy feeling in my chest that I don't really know how to describe.

My fingers curl slightly against her clothes before I even realize I'm doing it.

"...It doesn't hurt that much," I mumble.

Irisviel keeps gently rubbing my cheek anyway.

"That's good. But I'm still going to check."

"I'm fine."

"I know."

She says it so casually that I don't know what to say after that.

I look away, suddenly finding the room much more interesting than her face.

...Still, I don't ask her to put me down again.

---

---

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I don't know how long this comfortable feeling lasts, but Kiritsugu's cold voice suddenly wakes me up from my bliss.

"Why are you here?" he asks.

Judging from his tone, damn, he really hates me for some reason.

It's not like I killed his girlfriend or first love or anything. Well... now that I think about it, he almost died because Artoria turned Alter.

It's not like I killed his girlfriend or first love or anything. Well... now that I think about it, he almost died because Artoria turned Alter.

Then he wakes up and realizes he lost his Command Spells and his Servant, which was his only way to win this war and get his wish.

On top of that, he was just being told that the Holy Grail is corrupted. If he makes his wish for world peace to it, the Grail's twisted nature is going to interpret that by wiping out all of humanity to achieve it.

Yeah, it's completely understandable why he hates me right now.

"There is something I need to tell everyone here," I say, keeping my tone completely serious as I gently pull back from Irisviel's warm shoulder to look at them.

If Manaka actually summons a Beast or forcefully opens a path to Akasha, things are going to get really, really bad.

Especially since yesterday, right before Manaka disappeared, I clearly saw the black mud from my dreams pooling beneath her feet. That means she already has her hands on that corrupted Grail mud.

I have to stop her before everything gets worse.

"It's about my friend, Manaka, and the truth behind this Holy Grail War."

"First thing first, I'm sorry for deceiving you, Aunty Irisviel, but my name is not Reina. I'm actually Rikka. I'm from Fuyuki Orphanage."

For a moment, nobody says anything.

Irisviel's hand, which had been resting against my cheek, stops.

Kiritsugu just stares at me.

Even Maiya looks surprised, though hers is much harder to read. Her expression barely changes, but I can tell from the way she looks at me that she wasn't expecting that answer.

...Yeah. I guess that was probably not what they expected to hear.

Especially Kiritsugu and Maiya.

They've probably already started looking into me. If they're trying to figure out who I really am, they'd probably start with the obvious question.

'What family does she come from?'

Most people who know magecraft don't just randomly learn it somewhere. Usually, there's a family behind it. A bloodline, a Magic Crest, some kind of magecraft that's been passed down through generations.

So if they heard that an eight-year-old girl knows magecraft and can do things she shouldn't normally be capable of, they'd probably assume I'm from some mage family.

Maybe they were expecting me to finally give them a family name.

Instead, I just told them I came from an orphanage.

I look between the three of them.

"...Why is everyone looking at me like that?"

Irisviel is the first one to move. She lowers her hand from my cheek and looks at me with a mixture of surprise and confusion.

"Rikka... from an orphanage?"

"Yeah."

Kiritsugu's eyes narrow slightly.

"Fuyuki Orphanage?"

I nod.

"That's right."

Maiya doesn't say anything. She just keeps looking at me, like she's trying to fit this new piece of information into everything she already knows about me.

I can almost see the question forming in her head.

'Then where did she learn magecraft?'

Honestly, I can't blame them.

If I were in their position, I'd probably be asking the same thing.

"Also, before you start asking questions, let me finish the story."

I decide to just tell them everything straight. I take a deep breath and start explaining.

First, I tell them the truth about the Third Holy Grail War. I explain how the Einzbern family cheated the system back then by summoning an extra Servant class, an Avenger named Angra Mainyu, and how that single mistake completely corrupted the Holy Grail's core with all the world's evils.

I watch Irisviel's face slowly pale as I reveal one of her family's most guarded and shameful secrets.

Kiritsugu doesn't say anything. He just stays completely silent, his eyes narrowing as he processes everything I'm telling him.

Then I move on to the real problem.

Manaka.

I explain that she's not just some normal, talented magus. She was born directly connected to the Root itself.

The room goes completely quiet.

Maiya shifts slightly, while Kiritsugu's fingers tighten around his lighter.

I don't blame them. The Root is something magi spend generations trying to reach, and I'm telling them that a child was simply born with a connection to it.

Finally, I tell them about the black mud I saw forming beneath Manaka yesterday.

I explain that because of her natural authority over the Root, she doesn't need to play by the rules of this war at all. She already has access to that corrupted mud, and she plans to use it to forcefully tear open a path to Akasha and hatch a Beast.

If we let her do that, Fuyuki won't just be destroyed.

Everything will be destroyed.

"And the reason Manaka is asking for Saber, Archer, and Caster is because she needs all the Servants as mana batteries to hatch the Beast. So we can't let her have them."

I finish explaining and look at the three of them. Nobody says anything for a few seconds. Irisviel still looks shaken by everything I've told her, but Kiritsugu's expression is harder to read. He's turning his lighter over between his fingers, his eyes fixed on me like he's going through every part of my story in his head.

"So," he finally says, "you're telling me that this girl you call your friend is connected to the Root, already has the corrupted Grail's mud, and is planning to use all Servants in holy grail war to hatch a Beast."

"Yeah."

"And you expect me to believe all of that because you said so?"

I pause for a moment. "...When you put it like that, it sounds pretty crazy."

Maiya glances at Kiritsugu. "Kiritsugu."

"I didn't say I don't believe her." He doesn't look away from me as he continues turning the lighter in his hand. "I said I want to know how she knows."

I look back at him.

...Yeah.

That sounds more like Kiritsugu.

"You don't have to believe every conclusion I'm making. But these are the things I personally know." I look directly at Kiritsugu for a moment before adding, "But there's one more thing you should know."

I close my eyes, take a quiet breath, and then open them again, letting my Mystic Eyes of Death Perception come fully into view.

Spoiler

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Kiritsugu's expression changes almost immediately. It's subtle, but I catch it. Maiya notices too, her attention shifting toward my eyes as Kiritsugu continues staring at me.

"I'm not a normal child," I tell them calmly. "So if you're planning to investigate me, go ahead. I won't stop you. Just don't assume you'll understand everything about me."