The heavy snow had gradually stopped, and Fuyuki City under the snowy night was incredibly quiet, as if everyone was fast asleep.
Bright starlight spilled into the corner of the room. Ritsuka's eyes were downcast, her thoughts a mess. Countless things surged up and then dissipated, and the hallucinations grew stronger.
Holding the girl whose breathing was gradually weakening, tears burst from her eyes, and the magecraft suppressing the pain quietly shattered.
The pain that tormented her body and soul appeared in an instant, even more exaggerated than when she first used the Immortality.
This pain was constantly increasing and would probably only stop when it reached a certain limit.
[Immortality until transferred to Prometheus]
Chiron gave his Immortality to Alcides and thus died himself, no longer having to endure the pain brought by the Hydra poison.
Therefore, the time limit for the Immortality and the pain was the duration Chiron endured the torture. Afterward, the Immortality disappeared, and the pain from the Hydra poison also vanished along with the Noble Phantasm.
In the meantime, it would only get more and more painful.
Looking up through the window at the clouds departing and the scattered stars appearing in the sky, Ritsuka looked at the ground by the starlight. The mottled bloodstains were incredibly conspicuous on the floor.
Gently holding Sakura, Ritsuka found that there were many small wounds on her body; she had clearly already gone through a difficult battle.
"—Sakura."
"Senpai... don't cry..."
Sakura's face was full of a warm smile, but her eyes seemed to be getting heavier. She rubbed her cheek gently against Ritsuka's chest, like a large, clingy cat.
Lying sideways in Ritsuka's arms, Sakura looked at the familiar ceiling, her eyes full of unavoidable regret.
She still had so many things left undone, so many words left to say to her Senpai... "...Senpai... I suddenly feel like this is actually quite nice..."
Lying in Ritsuka's arms, being held tightly by the person she liked.
Miyu suddenly felt a bit happy in her heart. Things she wouldn't have dared to think about before could now be done without restraint; it seemed she was the one who gained more.
"Sakura, I've found that you don't seem to be just ordinarily silly."
Ritsuka forced a corner of her mouth up, showing a smile that looked much worse than a bitter one, making Sakura let out a 'pfft' and laugh, like a beautiful flower suddenly blooming.
Sakura's injuries were untreatable.
Her chest had been pierced, and her internal organs completely crushed. Such injuries were undoubtedly fatal for a human individual.
Ritsuka had no way to help Sakura recover, and Sakura herself had little magical energy left.
If she had enough magical energy and had noticed the injury in time, Sakura could have saved herself.
The Magic Crest, which could be used to suppress fatal injuries and was in some sense more important than the heir to the magecraft itself, was now also powerless.
In the Type-Moon world, the existence of a Magician is distinct from humanity. Magic Crests also reflect this; as a mystery trained and solidified over a lifetime by a Magician, it is the complete accumulation of a mage family's magecraft.
In other words, a family heirloom.
Sometimes, to keep the holder alive, a Magic Crest will even turn the holder into something beyond the human scope, thereby granting immunity to conventional death.
The Great Magician Zouken Matou, who lived for hundreds of years, also left back-up measures in the Magic Crest, but they failed to work now.
Because not long ago, in order to deal with Matou Shinji, Sakura had already staked all her magical energy.
Her Mage Circuits throbbed with pain; having overextended her nerve-like Mage Circuits, even if there were external magical energy input into Sakura now, she would suffer immensely from the backlash of the Mage Circuits, and there was even a risk of dying on the spot.
Ritsuka had experienced this feeling before; back then, it was Miyu who healed her with the power of miracles.
For a Magician, blood is no different from life force. Losing a large amount of blood consumed Sakura's life force, which could no longer be repaired by simple magical energy.
Combined with the overextension of magical energy and the backlash of the Magic Crest, the Butterfly Magecraft (illusion) Sakura was best at backlashed against her. This was also the reason she attacked Ritsuka, though she reacted and stopped in time just as she was about to touch her.
But that genuine killing intent was successfully captured by Ritsuka and countered.
Lacking sufficient combat experience herself, she could only rely on skills related to combat experience and the gradually appearing bodily reactions to fight. It was nearly impossible to expect Ritsuka to stop in time, especially since she hadn't noticed much abnormality when she struck.
Ritsuka suddenly felt empty inside, a feeling as if a large chunk of her heart had been carved out. Previously, this had happened when Kiritsugu died and when Miyu was taken away by Julian.
"So, Sakura was this important to me."
Watching Sakura lying on her chest, looking as if she could fall asleep at any moment, Ritsuka spoke from her heart.
An underclassman a year younger than herself, a junior who admired her... In the context of just being 'Emiya Ritsuka', she was someone with whom she could let down all her guard.
Perhaps, she might even be someone she liked... "Senpai, it hurts... my whole body hurts..."
Her fingers turned pale, clutching the corner of Ritsuka's clothes without letting go. Sakura's pained expression made the emotions in Ritsuka's heart nearly collapse.
Tears streamed down, flowing drop by drop onto the beautiful face.
Under the starlight, every tear emitted an unusual brilliance, crystal clear and as beautiful as gems, falling onto Sakura's cheek.
A certain scene flashed through her mind, and Ritsuka whispered in a trembling voice: "Pain, pain, fly away—"
"Pfft... Senpai is so childish..."
Sakura gave a very, very sweet smile.
"Senpai, I suddenly feel so cold... and, why... can't I see anymore..."
Sakura's voice made Ritsuka instinctively hold her tighter. A warm sensation flowed across her chest—undoubtedly Sakura's blood. Life was continuously slipping away in her arms.
Her left hand grasped Sakura's hand; the slender, soft fingers were losing their temperature.
"It's okay, Sakura. You just need to rest for a bit. I promise... when you wake up, I will be by your side."
With a voice barely squeezed from her throat, Ritsuka's body trembled. She already had enough power to oppose the Einzbern and was prepared to be separated from everything familiar in the future, because from the very beginning, she was prepared to die.
This was a 'journey until the end'.
Although the whole process and everything had exceeded her expectations.
"Right... Senpai, this..."
Sakura's eyes were full of lifelessness. Her fingers gently grasped something, and blood dripped continuously from it.
It was Imaginary Numbers; using her last bit of magical energy, Sakura took out something she had always carried with her.
The small panda plushie, stained with blood, looked a bit eerie at this moment, even to the point of scaring a child to tears. Sakura held the plushie gently in her arms.
"This is... the gift Senpai gave me... when we became friends... Now... I'm returning it to its original owner..."
The plushie was pressed into Ritsuka's arms and then fell to the ground.
Sakura laughed softly, her eyes gradually closing. She wrapped her arms around Ritsuka's back, using her last strength to give Ritsuka a hug.
Ritsuka froze. The presence in her arms suddenly became incredibly weak, as if it would completely disappear in an instant.
"Sakura... don't go...!"
"Senpai, I actually didn't want to be friends with you..."
Sakura's voice grew lower and lower until it was gradually inaudible, but her extremely excellent eyesight still helped Ritsuka see every slight movement of Sakura's lips.
'I don't want to be friends with Senpai... I've liked you for many years...'