Fate/Zero:Act 15 Part 5
-04:10:33
The Fuyuki City Hall –
This structure, which had been built at the cost of eight billion yen, was considered to be the symbol of Fuyuki Shinto’s development, together with the Central Building in front of the train station. It covered an area of 6600 square meters, and had 4700 square meters of usable space. It had a complex design that had four floors above ground and one floor below. The two-storied music hall can accommodate about 3000 patrons. The novel design by a prestigious architect had made this modern City Hall as majestic and splendid as an ancient shrine. The high ambitions Fuyuki City had in terms of Shinto’s development could thus be seen.
However, only the outside had been completed. The interiors were still being decorated to get ready for the commemoration ceremony. Actively putting it into civil use was still a long way off. Apart from a minimal level of safety measures, the building didn’t even have electricity. Deep in the night, with no workers on site, this pristine and splendid building had become an unreal space, with an inhuman silence and an alien feeling flowing and drifting through its emptiness.
Civil planning definitely did not include magecraft into its consideration. It was a complete coincidence for the City Hall to be built on top of Fuyuki’s latest leyline – in other words, such a rare coincidence can be attributed to the paranormal characteristics this place gained from the leyline.
Kotomine Kirei stood on the rooftop and calmly looked at the way the magecraft signals he had set off were scattering smoke in the night wind. All he had to do to infiltrate this unguarded building was to break the lock. He had already made the preparations for the ceremony and to confront an attack. All he had to do next was to stay here and wait for the remaining enemies to be attracted here by the signal.
The battle was near, yet he didn’t seem to be affected by it at all. Executors didn’t need to be excited with the prospect of bloodshed, nor did they need to make jokes to relieve the tension. They had the ideal characteristics to become tools of God’s will, and will gallop toward death with a heart containing only the ordinary feeling of completing a duty. Long years of such training allowed Kirei to display the calm and nonchalance of a practicing surgeon.
However –
“Hmph. Your face tonight is as cold as ever, Kirei.”
Archer, who walked up to the rooftop with a relaxed gait, mocked at him. Kirei laughed bitterly in his heart.
What did his face, emotionless as always, look like in the eyes of this Heroic Spirit who could look through everything? Even the shifts in his emotions that he couldn’t detect himself were unable to escape from this Heroic Spirit’s eyes.
Although his heart had wavered at the beginning, Kirei was used to it by now. Yes, he was a cold man in truth – he understood himself as if he were analysing someone else’s business.
The King of Heroes, who had just returned from the night market in the street, still wore his flamboyant and luxurious casual clothing. A residual tint of indulgency remained in those crimson eyes, and he didn’t show any sense of urgency at the approaching battle. However, this Heroic Spirit would never separate his outer appearance with his inner feelings. The battle surrounding the Holy Grail only seemed like child’s play to him.
“What do you want me to do next, Kirei? Just wait here?”
One wrong command could make Archer question the worth of his Master. Kirei, who knew this very well, shook his head after having thought about it for a while.
“The ceremony would be endangered if your power is released close to the Holy Grail. If you want to have fun, then attack head-on.”
“Mm, fine. But what do you plan to do if you’re attacked while I’m away?”
“Get Berserker to stall the enemies and I’ll use that time to summon you back. I would have to borrow the power of the Command Seals then. You wouldn’t mind, would you?”
“Permitted. However, I can’t guarantee the safety of the Holy Grail. I won’t be merciful tonight. This narrow little room may be completed destroyed.”
“That would be the worst outcome, but that would also be fate.”
Kirei nodded decisively, but Archer narrowed his eyes
“Kirei, it looks as if you understood the meaning of this war. But do you still not have a wish to bestow up on the Holy Grail? Not a single wish, even if you do manage to obtain the miracle?”
“That’s true. What’s wrong with that?”
“Although it’s yet to be completed, the ‘vessel’ is already in your hands. It may accept a ‘pre-ordered’ wish, you know.”
“… Hmm, I see. You’re saying that, if possible, a miracle can occur at the same time that the Holy Grail descends, right?”
Kirei sighed disinterestedly and thought about it for a while. At the end, he still shook his head.
“I still don’t have I wish. If I have to have one – then I wish there won’t be innocent people meddling with us in the final battle. Unfortunately, there are residents all around us. I had wanted to fight for my victory at some place desolate if possible.”
Hearing this completely boring answer, Gilgamesh said with derision.
“Hah, the thing hiding in your heart can only be guessed from around the Holy Grail.”
At the end, although those two were closer to the Holy Grail than anyone else, they also cared less for it than anyone. For those two, compared with gaining the Holy Grail, it was more meaningful to chase away those who had gathered because of it.
“– Ah, there’s one more thing. If Saber appears before I had returned –”
As he was about to depart, the King of Heroes stopped his steps as if having suddenly thought of something.
“– Then let Berserker play with her for a little while. I saved that mad dog’s life just for this.”
“Understood.”
Kirei still didn’t figure out the reason why Archer was so bend on Saber. However, as for Berserker, who had longed to destroy the King of Heroes due to their initial battle, things were different. The King of Heroes had allowed for Berserker’s continued existence after knowing his true name from investigating Matō Kariya. He had said ‘it’s entertaining to let that dog bite Saber”. The King of Heroes could always control his anger whenever it comes to Saber; it seemed Gilgamesh was very interested with the King of Knights.
“Say, Kirei, how’s that doll, the one Saber protected with the risk of losing her life? I heard that whatchamacallit– Vessel of the Grail – is in it.”
“Ah, you meant that.”
Kirei didn’t want to mention its existence. He had no more interest in it at this stage; he didn’t even feel the need to remember that woman’s name.
“I just killed her. There’s no more reason to keep her alive.”
Irisviel opened her eyes and looked around her surroundings.
She felt very strange. Her conscious was impeccably clear, and yet she could not think logically.
It seemed like it was not her mentality that became muddled and meaningless, but this world she was in.
Many scenes flashed past her eyes. When she beheld them, the only emotion that welled up within her heart was a meaningless and unbearable sorrow and emptiness.
The scenes that reflected from her eyes were eternally sundered from happiness or joy. That was the only thing in common amongst this a kaleidoscope of confusion.
There was pain, there was humiliation, and there was regret, hatred, and loss.
Bloodshed and a desolate land. Betrayal and vengeance. Having devoted everything and still received no return – it was an expensive cycle that had no rewards.
The familiar snow-covered scene continued to go on.
It was recounting the story of a clan that sealed everything they had within a castle of deep winter.
And here she finally remembered – what she was looking down upon was the two-thousand-year long pilgrimage of the Einsbern family for the Holy Grail.
The primeval Justizia and the female dolls created using her as a model… they were homunculi, fake living beings.
They were humanoid disposable created with the secret craft of alchemy and used to fulfil the unattainable lasting wish.
This lost and confused history of the Einsbern clan was written using their blood and tears as ink and their broken bones and frozen fingertips as pens. Their sighs and their despair made Irisviel’s heart clutch tight.
If the place that could see all of this had existed, then it would definitely be in the epicentre of all conflicts, within the thing that had witnessed all.
Irisviel finally understood. She was looking at the inside of the Holy Grail.
It was the Greater Grail that embraced the primeval Justizia, the Greater Grail of Mount Enzō. All homunculi were manufactured to the standard of the ‘Lady of Winter’, using her as their model. Therefore, they shared the same pain.
– No, was that really the truth?
“Why are you crying, Mother?”
When she came to, Irisviel discovered that she was in the room of her child, and was protected by the warmth of the fireplace.
Icy wind and snow gathered outside the window and the storm roared past. A pair of tiny hands clutched her mother’s arms tightly in search of protection.
“Mother, I had a nightmare. Illya dreamt that I became a wine cup.”
Although her heart was terrified, Illyaviel’s two red eyes still looked at Irisviel with trust. Though her face looked the same as her mother and all of her sisters, this child was different and she was more adorable than anyone else –
“There were seven big blocks in Illya’s heart. When Illya felt like she was about to break and was so scared but couldn’t run away, she heard Justizia-sama’s voice, and there was a big black hole above my head…”
Iriviel embraced her daughter tightly. Her silver-white fringe brushed past her daughter’s face, which was wet with tears.
“It’s alright, it’s alright… that won’t happen. You won’t see such things, Illya.”
There was one sad wish that only Irisviel possessed out of her innumerable sisters and could not share with anyone else – and that was the maternal love of a ‘Mother’.
Out of the generations of homunculi, she had been the first to give birth to a child from her womb. Out of all of her kind, only she was given a love for her child. Nonetheless, the fate that she carried was also lamentable.
Illyasviel von Einsbern was the next Vessel of the Grail, and also a mechanical part swept up into the two-thousand-year old cogwheel of delusion and stubbornness.
This shackle would not end before someone had claimed victory.
The Third Magic, the Cup of Heaven – that achievement was the only salvation.
Many sounds rushed towards Irisviel. She chanted with her countless sisters.
The Holy Grail –
Please grant the Holy Grail onto my hands –
Within the place deep within the forest where the used homunculi were discarded, the mountain of corpses made of her kin chanted. Those rotten, maggot-infested faces overlapped with Illya’s young and small face, and emitted those painful sounds.
“It’s alright –”
Full of love, the mother hugged her daughter tightly in her arms.
“Illya, you’ll definitely be freed from this shackle of fate. I will finish everything. Your daddy will also definitely fulfil this wish…”
At that time, a question suddenly flashed past her thoughts.
If this was a dream displayed by the Holy Grail – since she could see the ‘Vessel’ within so clearly and it had formed a shape – then what would Irisviel, who served as the outer cover, look like now?
It was as if the eggshell could see the innards of the chick.
If so, then this would be a giant contradiction. The shell was supposed to break when the chick hatches.
Then – who was the Irisviel that was dreaming?
The touch of Illyasviel’s slender body, which she was hugging tightly, was so realistic. Irisviel looked toward her own hands, which were hugging her daughter.
Irisviel had already disappeared. If the chick had consumed the broken shell…
The falling snow outside the window suddenly stopped. What melted into the darkness of the night was a thick black mud that stirred up ripples.
She wasn’t scared, nor was she surprised; she only comprehended it calmly and gazed upon it. The mud seeped in from all corners of the room and dripped from the chimney, and slowly soaked the ground beneath her feet.
Right, the question of ‘who was I’ was so minuscule.
She had been no one since the start. Even now, she was still ‘someone’ who used the personality of Irisviel, a woman who had already disappeared, as a mask.
Even so, Irisviel’s wish that was hidden in her heart remained true. It was the wish of a mother who thought of her beloved daughter and lamented the future of her daughter even as she drew her last breath and passed away. She had inherited the wish of this mother.
Therefore, she was the one who must fulfill that wish.
She was the existence that had been worshipped and expected because she was to fulfill everyone’s wish, because she was made to be the one.
“– It’s alright, Illyasviel, everything is about to end.”
Gently, she murmured beside the ear of the young girl, whom she was embracing for the first time.
“So let us wait here awhile. Father will definite come. He’ll come to help us fulfill all of our wishes.”
The scorching mud that clung tightly to her had elegantly dyed her skirt black.
As she waited for the moment when the wish will be granted, the woman with her body entangled in the inky darkness smiled.
Dispel all sorrows and chase away all worries.
Soon she will receive the power to fulfill wishes, and become the omnipotent wish-granting vessel that could fulfill all.
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