Maiya Hisau spotted Kirei Kotomine while scouting sniper positions.
Raised as a child soldier, she had lived like a machine simply to stay alive. By now, however, those experiences had become a past too painful to revisit.
After meeting Kiritsugu Emiya, she had gained a new name, a new identity, and a reason to exist.
For that, she would commit any sin without hesitation.
After arriving in Fuyuki with Kiritsugu Emiya, the two had taken advantage of the fact that not all the Masters had gathered yet to find suitable locations around Fuyuki City and establish bases. The work was not easy, but it had gone pleasantly enough. During that time, Kiritsugu Emiya had felt the urge to smoke for the first time in a while.
Since they could not find a vending machine nearby, Maiya Hisau, whose identity had not yet been exposed, had volunteered to buy cigarettes for him. On her way to the convenience store, however, she spotted an unexpected figure.
Kirei Kotomine.
The priest Kiritsugu Emiya had been watching so closely. Unsure whether a Heroic Spirit was accompanying him, Maiya Hisau merely cast a casual sideways glance at him. Yet she saw that this priest, who ought to have been lying low, was speaking to the convenience store clerk with a grave expression.
The clerk looked utterly unremarkable. Apart from a reasonably handsome face, nothing about him suggested any connection to the hidden world. After all, no mage would do something as ridiculous as wearing a convenience store apron and working as a cashier.
Was he a friend the priest had in the ordinary world?
Although Maiya Hisau also considered the priest dangerous, having friends hardly seemed strange given his profession. Perhaps this one could be used to threaten him later.
-That thought changed completely when she saw the young man take off his gloves.
Command Spells.
The power to issue three absolute commands. She had found the Seventh Master.
She had already suspected that the last Master would be some lucky person chosen at random by the Holy Grail, someone who did not even know what the Holy Grail War was. But now that he had exposed himself, that was his misfortune. For the victory Kiritsugu Emiya so desperately desired, she could not let this gift slip away.
Without much deliberation, Maiya Hisau checked her gun and walked inside. Just as she had expected, the young man noticed nothing and continued staring at the back of his hand. The rest would be simple.
Threaten him into leaving the store, take him somewhere secluded, call Kiritsugu Emiya over the radio to transplant the Command Spells, then kill him. If Command Spells did not have to be transplanted while the Master was alive, Maiya Hisau would have preferred to bring back nothing but a corpse.
He might have been an innocent ordinary person, but he had only himself to blame for being chosen.
And so, Maiya Hisau raised her gun.
Yet the response she received was entirely unexpected. He cooperated with her meekly, then quite naturally requested time off, picked up the phone, and began dialing. His actions flowed so smoothly that, for a moment, Maiya Hisau did not even know whether she should shoot.
"Manager, it's me, Roland. Sorry, something urgent has come up, so I need fifteen minutes off. Could you come cover for me? All right, thank you."
Roland hung up, smiled at Maiya Hisau, and raised both hands.
"That's taken care of. So, Miss Robber, where are we going next?"
"Shut up and follow my directions. Make another unnecessary move, and I'll shoot."
She was clearly the one with the advantage, yet this man named Roland had effortlessly seized the initiative in their earlier exchange. It made Maiya Hisau raise her guard.
Before long, they passed through several alleys and arrived at an unfinished building. This was a newly established base, with a stock of weapons already stashed in the surrounding corners and a clear radio connection. While escorting Roland here at gunpoint, she had already sent Kiritsugu Emiya the coded signal to meet her.
Only once everything was arranged did Maiya Hisau relax a little.
Since nothing unusual had happened yet, this man really must have been just a helpless ordinary person.
No, calling him ordinary was not quite right. Maiya Hisau did not believe a normal person would remain so calm after being taken somewhere secluded at gunpoint, let alone have the leisure to stare at his captor.
"What are you looking at?"
Sensing Roland's breathing grow slightly heavier, Maiya Hisau forced down her unease with composure and snapped at him.
"I'm just admiring your hands, Miss Robber. You have a very lovely pair."
Roland lowered his raised hands and answered flippantly.
"Do people always spout such nonsense when they're about to die?" Maiya Hisau kept her index finger firmly on the trigger. "Even if you sent some coded message earlier, I could kill you a hundred times before your reinforcements arrived!"
"Really?"
The smile on Roland's face deepened. Maiya Hisau instinctively stepped back. At last, she realized what was wrong.
His smile had seemed mild, but it was far too superficial, as though he had practiced it in a mirror. Only the cold, self-absorbed smile before her now held a trace of authenticity, eerie enough to be terrifying.
"Don't come any closer!"
Maiya Hisau no longer cared that killing the Master would mean losing his Command Spells. With unease sending tremors through her entire body, she pulled the trigger.
Yet her meticulously maintained, dependable weapon crumbled into dust under that forceful motion and slowly dispersed, as though it had been annihilated in an instant.
"This inexplicably filthy feeling... who the hell are you?"
Driven by her survival instincts, Maiya Hisau shouted.
Then, amid his nonchalant smile, she received her answer.
"My name is Roland. I'm nineteen years old. I live in the residential district near Shinto's shopping street, and I'm unmarried. I work at the convenience store in Fuyuki City's park."
"I get home from work by eight every evening at the latest. I don't smoke, and I only drink a little. I go to bed at eleven and make sure I get eight hours of sleep every day. Like a baby, I sleep soundly until morning, never carrying fatigue or stress into the next day. My coworkers all say I'm perfectly normal."
That unnervingly detailed introduction sent fear crawling out of every nerve in Maiya Hisau's body. Even she, who thought of herself as a weapon, could not stop trembling.
"What the hell are you talking about?"
If this went on, she would lose all courage to resist. Maiya Hisau could bear it no longer. At this close range, she lunged forward and threw a punch at Roland's face.
Yet Roland easily caught the wrist behind that fierce punch, which could have brought down a large man. Maiya Hisau tried to pull her hand back, but it would not respond.
Her hand could not move. Beyond Roland's strength as a man, another invisible presence was holding it in place.
"What I mean is, I have no great desires. I only want to live with peace of mind. That's why I don't concern myself with winning or losing. Those things only bring trouble and enemies, and I hate changes like that. But if I absolutely have to fight, I won't lose to anyone."
Crack-
As Roland cheerfully explained his outlook on life, he mercilessly directed Killer Queen to break the arm Maiya Hisau had punched with.
He studied Maiya Hisau's hand intently, his expression full of appreciation, then looked up and smiled.
"I never imagined someone who handles guns all year round could have such exquisite hands. Normally, I would have to indulge my tastes and take these hands as compensation for your disruption of my peaceful life. But..."
"Now, I've changed my mind, Miss Maiya Hisau."
Watching Maiya Hisau still struggling in vain, Roland glanced at the Key of All Spirits on his hand. At that moment, the item was emitting a silver light only he could see, conveying a message to him.
Current number of nearby Contract Spirits: one