"By the way, once Lost Will unfolds, anyone other than the target who approaches recklessly will also be drawn in," Morgan said.
"Why bring that up all of a sudden?" Xi Jianxi did not understand.
"I'm afraid my husband won't be able to sit still and will suddenly go finish off Artoria's group. If that happens, I can only think of you and hastily undo the magecraft."
"...Am I really that cruel?"
As soon as he spoke, Xi Jianxi suddenly looked up. He sensed the presence of others appearing in this forest.
"More than one. There are a great many of them." Morgan closed her eyes and connected her consciousness to the forest's barrier.
After analyzing the barrier here, she had not chosen to destroy it. Instead, she had mixed in her own spellcraft, intervening in the barrier's surveillance system and gaining control over the entirety of the Einzbern forest.
Anyone trying to enter or leave would be detected, even if they did not trigger the forest's defensive spellcraft.
"A great many?" Xi Jianxi raised an eyebrow slightly.
"One of them is human and is heading toward the castle. They'll arrive in two minutes at most." Morgan continued with the details. "As for the others, they're all Servants, but every single one has an abnormally faint presence."
"A large number of Servant presences... Assassin, then." Xi Jianxi folded his arms. "In other words, Assassin has an ability akin to cloning. It weakens its own strength, but for a Servant specialized in assassination and intelligence gathering, it couldn't be more fitting."
Morgan opened her eyes. "More Servant presences are still appearing. It looks like they intend to commit all their Servants and keep us here."
"But inside the castle..."
"Too clever for their own good."
Even Morgan could not help feeling that this was far too much of a coincidence.
The deafening roar of a car engine pulled him back to consciousness.
Kiritsugu Emiya noticed that he was sitting in a battered little truck, while the girl beside him leisurely gripped the vibrating steering wheel.
The vehicle left the village and drove deeper into the jungle.
"This is..."
"Awake now, Kerry?" the girl asked.
Hearing that name, as though from another lifetime, Kiritsugu Emiya turned toward the girl in astonishment, his eyes widening in disbelief.
That was the horizon of memories bleached white.
The other side had been blurred by blood and gunpowder.
For Kiritsugu Emiya's soul, filled with the smoke of war,
it was a memory of his origins, already impossibly distant.
He cautiously looked into the truck's rearview mirror. Through the aged glass, Kiritsugu saw a youthful face whose appearance he could no longer clearly remember, yet which undeniably belonged to him.
In the stone chamber, on a white hospital bed, a woman ravaged by terminal illness gazed at him with a smile overflowing with love. Kirei could never forget that body, too frail even to stand, so emaciated that it was little more than skin and bones. Nor did he have any reason to forget.
Claudia Hresvelgr.
His wife, who had died four years ago.
Then Kirei swiftly understood his situation.
He had originally been heading to Einzbern Castle, intending to find Kiritsugu Emiya before Xi Jianxi could act, confront that man once more, and seek the answer Kirei might obtain.
But after entering the castle, the scene before him had suddenly transformed into this.
In a room filled with sunlight, Kirei stood before the hospital bed, looking at his wife upon it.
It was that day.
Though he did not understand the mechanism, Kirei roughly deduced that this was likely an illusion created by some kind of barrier, allowing him to see his deceased wife.
Yet the scene was too real. Even if he wanted to break it, he could find no way to do so. More importantly, he remembered what day this was.
A man born defective.
Kirei knew this fact deeply. Though he could not comprehend morality, he possessed common sense, and he had spent his entire youth trying to overcome that flaw.
His asceticism had failed to cure his affliction. Every effort had ended in vain.
And his final attempt had been this woman before him.
For most people, this was the simplest thing in the world. Everyone had imagined loving someone, building a family, and then, when they reached the end of their lives, quietly breathing their last.
Kirei had wished for that.
Though he could not feel the appeal of such peaceful happiness, he had still wished that it could be so.
To love someone. To have a child.
But why had Kirei chosen a woman who had almost no future?
Anyone could see that the woman consumed by illness did not have long to live. Even Kirei could not remember why he had chosen her.
For two years, Kirei had loved his wife, and his wife had loved him as if he were a child.
Yet nothing improved. For him, only seeing his wife tormented half to death by her illness made him feel happy.
The more he loved his wife, the more misfortune he brought her.
Claudia, like a saint, loved Kirei unconditionally and deeply understood the anguish and fury in his heart.
Yet that was precisely what troubled Kirei all the more.
This holy person who understood him so well would soon disappear too. After that, who else would understand him?
He had recognized the flaw he had been born with and understood that there was neither an answer nor a cure. He could only proceed toward the end like this.
Kirei decided that he would end his own life.
As a husband, since he had decided to die, he had an obligation to tell his wife.
Claudia Hresvelgr loved Kirei.
Kirei believed that he should feel the same.
Thus, Kirei knew what he ought to say to his wife.
As on every day they met, though terminally ill, Claudia had waited eagerly for his arrival. When she saw the troubled Kirei enter the room, a motherly, compassionate smile appeared on her face.
I could not love you.
That day, Kirei had said this to his wife.
No, you love me.
Saying that, as though she had long known this day would come, his wife took out a dagger she had prepared beforehand and thrust it toward her own throat.
Kirei still remembered the last words she had spoken as he held her in a pool of blood.
...Because you're crying.
It had been that kind of day. On that day, Kirei's wife had left the world in a manner contrary to doctrine and faith.
So he had never dreamed that he would experience that day again.
Claudia looked at him with a beaming smile, waiting for his next words.
Kirei's throat moved as he spoke the words he had said before in an even, calm voice.
He could clearly have said something different, yet he still chose to repeat the same thing.
Just as if following a predetermined course, his wife's smile remained unchanged as she drew a blade from beneath the white sheets and aimed it at her throat.
"No, you love me."
But this time, before the dagger could pierce her throat, it was snatched away.
Stopping a terminally ill woman was no more than a simple gesture for a battle-hardened Executor.
He seized his wife and took the dagger with his other hand.
As though surprised by this outcome, Claudia revealed a smile Kirei had never seen before.
A happiness filled with salvation.
Was it she who had been saved, or Kirei? He did not know.
Nor did it matter.
"See? You really do love—"
As though declaring victory, his wife gently refuted Kirei, but her voice abruptly cut off against her will.
The dagger had plunged into Claudia's heart.
Yet this woman, who had embraced and understood him like a saint, did not lose that expression even at the final moment. She merely lightly grasped the arm with which Kirei held the dagger.
Her lips moved, making hoarse, gasping sounds. It seemed she still wanted to tell Kirei something, but she could no longer speak.
Kirei did not wait or ask. His hand swiftly exerted force, violently twisting the dagger inside Claudia's heart. Then he heard something within the woman's body seemingly shatter, like exquisite amber falling beyond recovery and breaking apart.
Blood spilled from the corner of the woman's mouth. Her body spent its last trace of strength, and her hand fell limply onto the hospital bed.
Kirei watched the light in her eyes gradually dim before vanishing completely. He knew that she was dead.
Claudia Hresvelgr had been killed by his own hand.
Perhaps because he had destroyed the predetermined sequence, the sunlight-filled stone room darkened and was swallowed by boundless darkness.
The dagger, his wife, everything else—he lost all sensation of them.
The only thing that remained was the exhilaration of killing his wife, filling the hollow within Kirei's heart.
For the first time in over twenty years of an incomplete life, the void in his heart had been filled.
He did not know what the person who had set up this illusion wanted him to see, but Kirei was grateful to them. Without such a thing, he might never have had the chance in his life to make a choice again and face his true thoughts.
Indeed, when his wife had committed suicide before him four years ago, he had cried.
They had been tears of sorrow, but not because he loved her, as the woman had said.
Now, Kirei could finally remember clearly.
He had not been saddened by the woman's death.
At the time, he had thought this.
How could this happen? If she was going to die anyway, I wanted to kill her myself.
He had only grieved that he could not enjoy the woman's death. That was all.
Since he could "start over," he would "choose again."
Still, perhaps that woman had understood the true nature of Kirei until the moment she died.
So he felt a little regret, but that was all.
With a slash—
He severed a head with his sword, and the black body fell backward.
The seventh.
In only a few minutes, Xi Jianxi had already killed seven Assassins... or rather, seven bodies.
Men, women, old people, youths.
The strong, the thin, the fat.
Those light as swallows, those with immense strength.
No matter how they were categorized, no classification could encompass them all.
But they were indeed all Assassins, and indeed, every one of them was even weaker than expected.
After only a few exchanges with Xi Jianxi, they were cut down.
If they were all the same, Xi Jianxi might have been even faster.
Before you continue