Chapter Text
The child couldn’t have been any older than ten, and his eyes were dead, untouched by the blood on Kiritsugu’s clothes, not registering the alarm claxons blaring in the background.
It was like looking in a mirror. He had that look when he had pulled the trigger and killed his father.
Kiritsugu’s brows furrowed, ever-so-slightly, and his heart was still too alive to take this without a second thought. No child should look like that, like him. He had an idea of what they had done to him, his own research had been thorough and the Magus Association had fed him enough information on top of that.
They weren’t registered as humans, just weapons. Never given a name, just a tag to distinguish between them, and then they were thrown into the pits, trained up as magi to be turned against some future enemy.
“Who are you?” The child’s voice was soft, but it was flat, no inflection to it, and his expression didn’t change. A question for the sake of a question.
“I’m-” He stopped. Who was he? He wasn’t the Magus Killer. The Magus Killer wouldn’t have felt his heart start to wither the longer he looked at this child, the Magus Killer wouldn’t have bothered to stop for the boy. He would have simply done his job, mechanically, and left after dealing with the Magi.
The Magus Killer wouldn’t remember Maiya’s words, croaked and gasping, as she laid dying in his arms, used the last of her strength to give him a last request that she would think of as selfish: “Kiritsugu, please find my son.”
The Magus Killer wouldn’t have wasted time getting caught up in old thoughts of old friends, and Kiritsugu shook his head, dismissed them.
The child, if he noticed the lapse, didn’t comment, and just stood there, still, and he could still pick out the silence through the ringing bells of alarms.
“I’m a friend of your mother.”
Still no reaction, nothing to say he registered any significance to the words, Kiritsugu might as well had just pointed out the colors of the walls it seemed like.
“My mother?”
Still mechanical, and he was cursing the people that did this to him in the back of his mind.
“Yes, your mother. Her name was Maiya.” The child had never met his mother, he knew, let him know her name, let it be the start of him getting to know her, to finally become something that was human. Weapons didn’t have family, people who cared about them, let the child know that he did.
“She told me to find you. I’ve come a long way to do it.” More words than he was accustomed to, delivered in a softer voice than he was used too, but it was important again, to establish that there were people who knew him as a person, who would go to the ends of the world for him.
“I’m Kiritsugu.” He took a knee, finally answering that question, and he was eye level with the child now.
“What’s your name?”
The child took a second to respond.
“Sigma.”
Kiritsugu already knew that, but let him reveal it, give him the choice. Let him learn that there were choices to be made, and that he could make them.
“Sigma.” He repeated it. “It’s nice to meet you.”
The child, Sigma, nodded, and Kiritsugu returned it, straightened up. “The people who took you are dead. They won’t hurt you again.”
Another nod, no change in the expression, and Kiritsugu continued. “You have a choice. You can leave here, and you can leave with me. I’ll protect you.” He had said that about Illya, hadn’t he? Back in Fuyuki, he had made a promise to Iri, that he would retrieve their child.
He had failed. Staving the blizzards and destroying the bounded field hadn’t been enough, he hadn’t been able to take the castle and get through her guardians.
Would he fail now?
Another shake of the head. He wasn’t going to find out, standing here, questioning his worthiness.
Sigma still hadn’t moved, hadn’t said anything, and Kiritsugu reached out a hand towards the boy, offering it for him to take.
“Sigma?”
And finally, there was a flicker of something in his eyes. Hope? It was gone as quickly as it came, a flash of something that could easily be dismissed as a trick of the light, but the boy reached out a small hand, and took Kiritsugu’s.
“All right.”
That was all he said, and it would be enough for Kiritsugu to tug him along gently, through the hallways, past the corpses of the men who had done this to Sigma, who he spared only a blank glance.
When they finally hit open air, the sun was starting to break over the horizon, and Kiritsugu took a breath of smoke tinged air, and it was the first day of a new life, he guessed, that the Magus Killer couldn't touch.