"That... that was too close..."
Kiritsugu Emiya leaned against the foot of a wall at the far end of the street. Unable to hold it back any longer, he coughed up a mouthful of blood.
He carelessly wiped the blood from his lips and forced himself to try to stand, but in the end, he slid helplessly back down the wall.
"Was quadruple-speed Time Alter still too much for me?"
The instant that dangerous little vehicle exploded, Kiritsugu Emiya had activated the magecraft befitting his name.
Time Alter was the means of reaching the Root that the Emiya family had passed down through its Magic Crest for generations.
Put more simply, it was magecraft that manipulated time. If reproduced as a Reality Marble, it could control the interior of the Barrier, accelerating or stopping the flow of time.
But ultimately, that was only an abstract theory. Otherwise, a Reality Marble would never have been called the magecraft closest to True Magic. After all, in theory, such a thing encroached upon the world with one's own mental landscape.
It was not until Kiritsugu's father's generation that he ingeniously managed to place a small Barrier inside his own body, demonstrating what this magecraft could do. Though Kiritsugu Emiya cared little for the Emiya family's legacy, he was quite fond of this particular magecraft within its Crest.
Only by accelerating himself had Kiritsugu Emiya managed to escape to the edge of the blast in time. But the price was that, once the magecraft ended and his body's flow of time was forced back into sync, capillaries throughout his body began rupturing en masse.
Even Kiritsugu Emiya's lifeless face twisted at this point. After several gasping breaths failed to bring any relief, he pressed a hand against his ribs, where a dull pain throbbed.
Kiritsugu Emiya immediately reached a conclusion: the explosion had damaged his internal organs.
If even the shock wave at the edge could do this, the power of the explosion was easy to imagine. Had he activated his magecraft a moment later, he would probably have become a mangled corpse.
The Magic Crest on Kiritsugu's body also lit up of its own accord, drawing on his magical energy to perform healing magecraft. But that only treated the symptoms, not the cause.
"Still, this will do. Good thing I brought the scabbard."
After Saber had been summoned, some residual magical energy remained within Avalon, enough to provide a limited healing effect.
Relying on that, Kiritsugu Emiya planted both palms against the wall and laboriously hauled himself upright, looking utterly drained. He could not afford to worry about the aftereffects now. Having dealt with this trap, he had to reach Maiya Hisau while he still had the strength to fight.
But the next instant, his face, which had gradually regained its cold composure through the pain, twisted again.
Through the dispersing smoke and dust at the center of the explosion, the little blue vehicle slowly emerged. The skull on top locked onto his direction once more.
"Impossible! I saw it explode with my own eyes!"
A Mystic Code that combined automatic target acquisition, invisibility, and the ability to produce powerful explosions could fetch an astronomical price among magi. Kiritsugu Emiya had heard of similar things.
But a monster that could restore itself completely unharmed after a self-destructive explosion was beyond anything he knew.
Yet Sheer Heart Attack did not pause. Faithfully following its master's orders, it drove toward Kiritsugu Emiya and made a declaration in an icy voice.
"That last explosion didn't hit a human-look over here!"
Like the Grim Reaper's soul-reaping scythe, it left Kiritsugu Emiya with no options.
Do I have to use a Command Spell?
To think I'd have to waste one without even seeing the enemy's face. The commotion caused by a Heroic Spirit appearing and fighting this thing would send the enemy fleeing, too. What a blunder.
Kiritsugu Emiya raised his hand, mentally calling upon his Command Spell while making one last futile effort. He emptied the Fully Automatic Submachine Gun in his hand, then tossed it aside.
"By my Command Spell..."
But something unexpected happened. The little vehicle did not continue pursuing him. Instead, it headed toward the discarded gun.
That discovery immediately made Kiritsugu Emiya realize the key to the situation. He abandoned the Command Spell and hurriedly took out several bullets, tossing them into the distance one by one like treats to lure a puppy, then setting them off with ignition magecraft.
Bang, bang...
As each bullet went off, the little vehicle obediently followed the trail they left, slowly moving away.
"So it really does track temperature?"
Kiritsugu Emiya breathed a sigh of relief. Heartbeats and breathing were the most common means of tracking a target, so he had failed to react immediately to something that pursued heat.
After watching the little vehicle recede with a grave expression, Kiritsugu Emiya prepared to run as well. For all its apparent invincibility, its pursuit speed was roughly that of a fast remote-controlled car. With this much distance between them, he should have been able to escape its tracking.
But things did not go as he hoped.
Just as the little vehicle was about to leave the street, it suddenly stopped. Ignoring the bait ahead of it, it turned around and looked toward Kiritsugu Emiya again.
"How? My body temperature clearly..."
The abnormal behavior startled Kiritsugu Emiya, and a sudden realization flashed through his mind.
He remembered.
"It was the magecraft?"
During Kiritsugu Emiya's career as the Magus Killer, an incidental little trick had allowed him to locate his targets precisely and kill them.
When he became a magus, Kiritsugu Emiya discovered that a magus's body temperature rose when using magecraft, perhaps because their Magic Circuits had been activated.
Through that observation and continued research, Kiritsugu Emiya had learned to distinguish magi from ordinary people.
And just now, although ignition was only basic magecraft, his repeated use of it in rapid succession had caused the temperature within his body to register higher than the bait, which only produced heat for an instant.
"How ironic." Having made a mistake in the very field he excelled at most, Kiritsugu Emiya could only give a helpless, bitter smile as he watched the approaching little vehicle bring tidings of death.
"That should be enough."
Roland leisurely watched Maiya Hisau before him. The dagger in her hand had already been knocked to the floor, and Killer Queen, standing in her way, mercilessly drove a kick into her abdomen. The heavy blow sent Maiya Hisau flying as though she had been hit by a car, her body smashing through one of the closed doors at the exit.
The exit was only a step away, yet she did not even have the strength to crawl out. More ironically still, she had specifically chosen this secluded, abandoned building so she could dispose of Roland's body after killing him. She had never expected it to become her own grave.
"I told you, didn't I? Don't put up pointless resistance. It only angers me and brings you more pain. I'm the victim here today, aren't I?"
Roland spoke in a cold voice. "Wouldn't it be better to just die without a fuss? Are you still hoping Kiritsugu Emiya will come save you?"
Maiya Hisau made no sound. Bracing herself against the floor, she slowly raised her body.
She merely gazed quietly toward the exit, scenes from her past flashing through her mind as she awaited death.
As though answering that tiny hope of hers, a low voice rang out from across the street.
"Maiya!"
Dragging his battered body along, Kiritsugu Emiya saw the dying Maiya and instinctively reached out, calling to her.
But for Maiya Hisau, this was only the arrival of another kind of despair.
"Kiritsugu Emiya actually escaped? I'd thought I'd have to retrieve it from his corpse. Oh well, perfect timing."
I have to protect Kiritsugu.
Maiya Hisau looked back blankly. Roland leaned against the wall in a rather provocative pose, one hand clenched into a fist, his thumb slightly bent as though about to press a trigger.
Strength from some unknown source sustained her will. Maiya Hisau shouted toward the approaching Kiritsugu louder than she ever had in her life.
"Kiritsugu! He's the seventh Master! The secret to his ability is explosions! He can turn anything he touches..."
But before she could finish, an indifferent voice had already decided her fate.
"Killer Queen has already touched you."
Roland gently pressed his thumb down.
"Maiya-!!!"
Amid Kiritsugu Emiya's despairing cry, Maiya Hisau's body shattered piece by piece, turning into drifting smoke and vanishing.
Thank you all for your votes and tips! While the novel is still being featured, I'll post an extra chapter tomorrow for all you wonderful readers.