"Too… too dangerous…"
Emiya Kiritsugu slumped against the wall across the street, unable to suppress the blood that surged up from his throat. He coughed violently, crimson staining his lips.
Wiping his mouth with the back of his hand, he tried to stand, but his knees gave out, and he slid down the wall, utterly drained.
"using Four-times the usual speed… even now, it's still too much for me..."
Just before the explosion from that cursed toy car, Kiritsugu had activated the Emiya family's signature magecraft, Innate Time Control.
This ancient thaumaturgy, passed down through generations via the family's Crest, allowed Kiritsugu to manipulate his personal time flow, accelerating or slowing it within a localized field. In theory, if extended to the scale of an Inner World, it could control the very flow of time inside that bounded field. But that level of control was merely theoretical, like all reality marbles, it was an erosion of the world through sheer force of will.
It wasn't until his father's generation that anyone had managed to manifest a small-scale version of it inside the body itself, allowing for momentary bursts of superhuman speed.
Though Kiritsugu had little regard for the Emiya bloodline, he did admire this magecraft.
Thanks to it, he had narrowly escaped the center of the explosion. But the cost was steep, once the spell wore off, the capillaries in his body, pushed to match the accelerated time flow, had begun rupturing en masse.
His face twisted in agony. His lungs wheezed, gasping for breath that wouldn't come. A dull ache pulsed in his ribs, warning of internal injuries.
"M-my...Internal organs...are..damaged?"
He pressed a hand to his side, grimacing. Even just grazing the outer edge of the blast had left him like this. If he'd hesitated for even a second, he'd be scattered across the street in pieces.
His body lit up faintly with the magic crest's glow as it instinctively activated healing spells. But they were temporary patches, not a real fix.
"It's fine… I brought the scabbard."
Avalon. Even the residual magic remaining after summoning Saber was enough to sustain some regeneration. It would buy him time, just enough, he hoped, to regroup and get to Maiya.
Bracing against the wall, Kiritsugu forced himself up, every movement making him feel like his bones were made of rusted metal. He couldn't afford to collapse now.
But then, his expression froze.
From the heart of the smoke and flame, the blue toy car, the one that should've been obliterated, rolled forward once more. The skeletal jaw mounted on its roof clicked open, and again, it turned to face him.
No.
"I saw it explode with my own eyes…"
A device that could go invisible, lock onto targets, and self-destruct—Kiritsugu had heard of similar creations before. Such a thing would fetch a king's ransom among magi.
But something that could self-detonate and then reappear unscathed? That was beyond comprehension.
And it wasn't finished. The Withering Heart-Piercing Attack, loyal to its master, began driving straight for him once more, its voice cold and mechanical:
"The explosion didn't strike a human. ——Look here."
It was like the Reaper's scythe, a soulless thing, hunting on command. Kiritsugu was powerless.
Should I use a Command Spell…?
He hadn't even seen the enemy yet, and already he was on the verge of wasting one of his command spells. The summoning of a Servant, the blast, the noise, everything could alert their foes and drive them into hiding.
Grimacing, he raised his hand and began to invoke the Command Seal. At the same time, he fired the last rounds from his SMG, then tossed it aside.
"In the name of the Command Sp—"
But something strange happened.
The car stopped. It no longer advanced toward him, instead turning to roll toward the discarded gun.
Kiritsugu froze, watching. His thoughts raced, and then he understood.
He stopped the Command Spell invocation and quickly pulled out a handful of bullets. Like feeding scraps to a dog, he scattered them one by one, each imbued with fire-elemental magecraft.
Bang. Bang. Bang.
The car obediently turned, following the freshly heated bullets.
"…It's tracking temperature?"
Kiritsugu finally exhaled, realization sinking in. Most targeting methods tracked heartbeats or breath. But this… this thing locked onto heat.
He'd panicked at first, but now that the car had gone off course, he had a real shot at escape. Its movement speed was about the same as a child's remote-controlled toy, he could outrun it.
...Or so he thought.
Just as the car was about to vanish at the far end of the street, it froze, then turned its skeletal face toward him again.
What...?
"My body temperature should be masked by now…"
A sudden chill ran through Kiritsugu.
And then, like a dagger to the brain, it hit him.
Magic.
He had used too much. The last desperate flurry of spells had activated his circuits over and over again, raising his body temperature in subtle but measurable ways.
He'd made a mistake in the very area he prided himself on, and now it would cost him his life.
"How ironic."
A bitter smile formed on his lips as the toy car of death rolled toward him once more.
---
"That's enough."
Roland looked down at Hisau Maiya with disinterest. The dagger she'd once gripped was now on the ground.
Killer Queen stood between them, silent and regal. With a swift, brutal kick, the Stand launched Maiya through the air like a broken doll. Her body crashed through a metal door and crumpled inside like discarded trash.
So close to the exit. Just one more step.
But she couldn't move.
The place she had chosen so carefully to be secluded, the place she meant to kill and dispose of Roland....had become her own grave.
"I told you not to resist. You've only pissed me off more. You think I'm the villain here?"
Roland's voice was low and venomous.
"I'm the victim today."
His gaze sharpened.
"You should just die already. Still hoping Kiritsugu's going to show up and save you?"
Maiya said nothing. She forced herself upright, trembling, eyes still fixed on the open doorway, her memories flooding back in the face of death.
And then—
"Maiya!"
Kiritsugu's voice rang from across the street. He stumbled into view, eyes wide in horror, blood streaked across his face. His gaze locked on hers, and he instinctively reached out.
For Hisau Maiya, this was not salvation.
It was the cruelest kind of despair.
"He actually survived?" Roland mused aloud, his voice calm. "Well, guess I won't have to fish that off a corpse. Perfect timing."
Maiya's head turned slowly. Roland was standing against the wall, one hand raised in a lazy fist. His thumb slowly cocked back, ready to trigger the end.
She had to speak.
With a final surge of will, her voice rose louder than ever before in her life.
"Kiritsugu! That's the seventh Master! His ability is explosions! Anything he touches—!"
But she was too late.
That cold voice spoke her final sentence.
"Killer Queen has already touched you."
And Roland's thumb pressed down.
"MAIYAAAA!!!"
Kiritsugu's anguished scream rang out as Maiya's body detonated, scattering into ash and vapor.
She was gone without any trace left.....