"You don't need to teach me. I won't have any use for it anyway."
"Why won't you?"
"I don't want to kill people."
One Hassan said softly, "Little Caren, we're not teaching you to kill. We're teaching you to protect yourself."
"Protect myself?"
"Yes. You can see those things, can't you? Those spirits ordinary people can't see... If one day those things wanted to hurt you, what would you do?"
"Besides, your father is taking part in the Holy Grail War. Anything can happen in a war like that. If he loses, if the enemy finds this place..."
"That has nothing to do with me."
Caren interrupted Hassan. "He's him, and I'm me. He's never cared about me, and I don't need him to."
The Hassans exchanged looks again.
Through observation, they had learned what kind of man Kirei Kotomine was. That man's heart was empty and twisted, and he was pursuing something he himself did not understand.
He wasn't a "bad father" in the conventional sense. He simply didn't care.
He didn't care about his daughter, his family, or anything ordinary people cared about.
In a sense, he was very much like the girl before them.
They were both "saints."
"Little Caren... have you ever considered that your father is actually..."
"No."
Caren lay down with her back to them. "I'm going to sleep. Keep quiet."
The Hassans looked at her back and sighed.
Then they drifted into a corner and quietly kept watch through the night.
A long time passed.
So long that moonlight shone through the window and fell across the bed.
Caren's voice suddenly rang out. "What... is he doing now?"
The Hassans froze for a moment.
"He's at the church. He seems to be... researching something."
Caren asked nothing more. That man kept muttering the