"Oh? It's Rin."
Kirei looked at the little girl, his face devoid of any panic at being caught in the act of murder. Instead, a playful smile crept onto his lips.
He slowly straightened up and retracted the Black Keys into his sleeves. Just as he usually did when visiting the Tohsaka Manor, he gave Rin a slight nod.
"Why are you here so late? My teacher will be worried."
If one ignored his bloodstained and dirt-caked vestments, as well as Irisviel groaning on the ground...
His tone sounded exactly like that of a dutiful elder showing concern for a lost girl from the neighborhood.
"Don't... stay away!"
Rin subconsciously took a step back, raising the compass in her hand as if to use it as a shield. "That lady... who is she? Why are you trying to kill her?!"
"Father said that a magus must maintain elegance and composure! Bullying the weak... that is not something a magus should ever do!"
"Elegance? Composure?!"
Kirei repeated the two words, shaking his head with a chuckle.
"Master Tokiomi did indeed teach that, but Rin, you are still too young."
He walked toward Rin step by step. "On the battlefield, so-called elegance is a luxury only the strong deserve to possess..."
*Tap...*
Kirei stopped in his tracks, standing only a few meters away from Rin, looking down at her from above.
"Since you have come here and seen things you were not supposed to see, we cannot pretend nothing happened."
Rin looked at the unfamiliar Kirei before her, feeling an unprecedented sense of terror.
Those hollow eyes held absolutely no emotion, resembling a black hole threatening to swallow her whole.
"Hassan," Kirei called out softly.
*Whoosh—*
In the shadows behind Rin, a burst of black mist surged.
A hunched, dark figure wearing a skull mask slowly emerged. It was one of the few remaining Assassin clones left after the fierce battles of the past few days.
His Assassin, named Hassan-i-Sabbah, possessed a Noble Phantasm called [Delusional Illusion], which could split into a maximum of eighty individual clones, making him a natural intelligence gatherer.
However, the more he divided, the lower the magical energy, endurance, and attack power of each individual clone became.
To ensure a baseline level of combat effectiveness, Kirei had been relatively restrained with the cloning. Yet even so, there were barely any left now.
"Master, what are your orders?" Assassin's voice was hoarse and grating.
Rin was so terrified that her body went stiff; she could not even let out a scream.
She could feel the murderous intent radiating from the monster behind her, more piercing than the winter wind.
"Uncle Kirei..." Rin said with a sob, trying to awaken his conscience. "It's me, Rin... Are you going to kill me too?"
Kirei looked at her and remained silent for a moment.
Images of his training at the Tohsaka Manor over the past few days flashed through his mind.
Tokiomi's incessant lectures on magical theory, Aoi's gentle smile, and the little girl before him who always held her head high and acted with such fiery determination.
If this had been yesterday, he certainly would not have done this.
After all, Tokiomi Tohsaka was still his ally and the [Leader] of this war.
But just moments ago, from the report of an Assassin clone, he had learned that the King of Heroes had been possessed by some sort of tentacle entity, and his magical energy fluctuations were abnormally violent.
Recalling the King of Heroes who had plummeted into the river, corrupted by filth.
That once aloof and arrogant king had likely undergone some sort of qualitative mutation by now.
'The king may no longer be the king he once was,' Kirei judged inwardly.
The original plan was to assist Tokiomi in achieving victory, but now, the situation had spiraled completely out of control.
Gilgamesh's fall perhaps meant that their strongest trump card had become uncontrollable.
The alliance between that Avenger and the Matou Family had thus become the greatest threat.
With Assassin's meager parlor tricks, did he still need to desperately ensure Tokiomi's victory?
No.
Kirei felt it.
The long-suppressed seed within him, known as joy, had finally broken through the soil, watered by tonight's chaos and blood.
He no longer needed Tokiomi.
He did not even need to rely on anyone.
As long as he controlled the Lesser Grail and waited for the maddened Gilgamesh to mutually destroy the other Servants...
He, Kirei Kotomine, was fully capable of becoming the final victor of this war.
He could even use the so-called Heaven's Feel to ask that omnipotent wishing machine—
'For what purpose was I born into this world?'
Kirei's voice became incredibly gentle, yet also incredibly cruel.
"As your elder, I will teach you one final lesson."
"In the world of magi, there is no mercy."
He turned around, no longer looking at Rin's terrified little face, and waved his hand at the Assassin behind her.
"Dispose of her."
Those three short words pronounced the young girl's death sentence.
"Understood."
Assassin let out a sinister laugh and raised the pitch-black dagger in his hand.
Although his current strength was nothing special and could not compare to those monstrous Servants.
Killing a little girl with some aptitude for magecraft was easier than crushing an ant.
"Farewell, eldest daughter of the Tohsaka Family."
The dagger sliced through the air, thrusting toward the center of Rin's back.
Rin closed her eyes in despair.
*Squellch—!*
The sound of a sharp blade piercing flesh rang out.
The anticipated agonizing pain never came.
Rin tremblingly opened her eyes.
She saw the Assassin who had been about to kill her now standing stiffly in place. The dagger in his hand had stopped mere centimeters from her back, unable to advance even an inch further.
And right through Assassin's chest...
A blade tip, pitch-black as ink and radiating a biting cold gleam, had pierced through his back and emerged from his chest.
Blood dripped down the tip of the blade, dyeing the ground red.
"Hah... Hah..."
The blade trembled in time with rapid breathing. It was obvious that the person holding the sword lacked the mental preparedness to deliver such a strike, having acted entirely out of desperation.
"It's actually you?!"
The Assassin, his chest impaled, wore an expression of sheer disbelief as he struggled to move again.
*Slash—!!*
With a swing of the sword, he was cleaved in two, rapidly dissolving into a cloud of ash.
Kirei Kotomine's gaze filled with confusion. He had completely failed to anticipate that the person standing opposite him would appear here at this moment.
"...What a rare guest. This is our first time meeting, isn't it, Master of the Kamado Family."
The person standing opposite him was none other than Sumire Kamado!
A few hours ago.
The night wind cut like a knife, slicing through Fuyuki City's already restless air.
At the entryway of the Matou Manor, Sumire Kamado took a deep breath.
Her lungs expanded within her chest. Following that unique breathing rhythm, her twelve Magic Circuits—recently reinforced by a massive amount of magical energy—let out a low roar like a slumbering engine roaring to life.
"Mom, Uncle Kariya, rest well here. I have to go help Mr. Asuka."
She spoke softly to the two unconscious figures in the living room, her hands tightly gripping a katana she had dug out from a corner of the Matou Family's storehouse.
It was not a finely forged Nichirin Sword, nor was it some world-renowned Noble Phantasm. It was merely an ordinary blade meant for collection.
But the moment she grasped it, Sumire felt an inexplicable sense of reassurance.
It was as if her great-grandfather, whom she had never met, was granting her the courage to wield a sword through the resonance of their bloodline.
"Big sister Sumire, do you really have to go...?"
Sakura asked anxiously from the doorway. Sumire Kamado simply patted her on the head.
"I'm leaving the people here in your care. I'll be back soon!"
She smiled, pushed the door open, and dashed out into the night.