Work Text:
-breakstart-
“Do you want to live, Onii-chan?”
“...ya...”
“It’ll be hard, I’ll admit. That body of yours is too damaged to keep yourself in it. No worries, though, I won’t need mine for what I’m going to do next. You can have it.”
“...Il...ya...”
“Sleep well, onii-chan. Let Illya-nee-chan do big sister things and finish this once and for all. Goodbye.”
“...”
-scenebreak-
BA-BUMP
Emiya Kiritsugu’s eyes snapped open as the sudden feeling of vertigo passed. Instincts from years long past pushed him to get out of bed, his senses sharp as prana flooded his body to dispel the lethargy of sleep.
He moved quickly, going over to the room’s closet and retrieving his old coat. A cursory check showed that it still had the small pistol he kept hidden incase his other weapons ran out or he was disarmed. With his usual armaments stored inside the shed... it would be enough.
“...Kiri?”
Kiritsugu paused in his preparations and turned to the bed, where a beautiful, white-haired maiden was sitting up, a hand to her face as she rubbed off the sand in her eyes.
He couldn’t help but stare at the woman, his wife. Irisviel von Einzbern was a testament to her family’s skill at creating homunculi. Long, white hair, soft as silk; Piercing red eyes like rubies; Flawless pale skin that he had run his hands over and over and over-
The heat coursing through his body reminded him of his task. He let out a small grunt and donned his coat over his sleep clothes. It was a good defense, with the runes and sigils woven inside the cloth, against most mundane threats. If it was a magical threat, however...
“...the bounded field. Something is inside the property.” he said tersely, removing the hidden gun in his coat and checking it for any damage or anything that would cause it to misfire.
...still perfectly maintained. That was good. Hopefully, the intruder would be intimidated with having a gun pointed at their head... or, at least, they would be vulnerable to mundane methods of killing. If not...
“Iri, get the active defenses to standby.” He calmly ordered his wife, who was now sitting up and alert. “I’ll get Leysritt for back-up. Sella will accompany you.”
“Be careful, husband.” his wife’s voice, filled with concern, reached his ears as he stepped out of the room.
He didn’t need to reply. He was always careful, she knew it, too.
-scenebreak-
The intruder was inside the shed.
It was a worrying thought for Kiritsugu. The shed, a small building that sat in his estate’s backyard, was not just a normal shed for storage and supplies. It was his Workshop. His sacrosanctum as a Mage. Not only did it contain his research on his own brand of magecraft, as little as it was, it also doubled as his personal armory. For someone to actually breach the defenses he’d set up, along with the several mundane traps to catch anyone skilled in magecraft off guard...
The thought was pondered on for a moment, then discarded as he approached the shed with care. No use worrying for now. His current priority was the intruder.
He reached the shed’s door, an unassuming thing, just a plain, wooden door... that somehow holds deathtraps too numerous to count. A quick glance behind showed him Leysritt, one of his wife’s maids, standing in the shadows of his house, a great halberd held ready to assist if a battle breaks out.
Moments later, he was standing beside the shed’s door, his side lightly pressing on the concrete wall that had been enchanted to be stronger than steel. There was no movement at all within the building, but that could only mean that the intruder has a Mystic Code or a Mystery that can conceal his presence from his senses, augmented as it was from his home’s bounded fields.
The man known as Magus Killer then removed his chosen weapon from the confines of his coat, tensing slightly as he focused on his workshop’s door... and willed the defenses away.
The door opened slowly -
Kiritsugu moved in a flash, slamming the wooden door open, his gun raised with a click.
- Nothing.
No, not nothing. His senses tugged at him to the source of this late night disturbance. It was in the area where he made that magic circle, an elaborate one, meant for high level spiritual evocations. A back-up plan, in case their flight from Irisviel’s family and his mission, and the subsequent events that transpired afterwards, would drag his family into that bloody war. A war against other mages. A war against legends of old.
A war for a miracle.
But it came to past and his family was safe, unharmed from the machinations of the Einzberns. Now, the circle lay dormant, forgotten and gathering dust, it’s intended use never realized.
And now his senses, enhanced by his own home’s defenses, told him that his intruder was right there.
All he saw was a pile of bloody clothes, ripped and torn , and a small body within it.
Kiritsugu was over it in an instant-
-Over her. He mentally corrected as he saw the body wearing the torn and dirty rags.
She was a small thing, probably around his daughter’s age, with red hair hair that reminded him of his adopted son, Shirou, and, strangely enough, flawless pale skin. She was perfectly clean, even amidst the stained cloths. And she was barely breathing.
The stoic man’s eyes widened imperceptibly.... and the girl, wrapped gently in what would barely pass as a shirt, was in his arms as he strode out of the shed with haste.
He caught Leysritt’s eyes as he walked, and he jerked his head.Get Irisviel, was the unspoken command. The maid nodded, and disappeared, fetching her mistress.
He was barely up the stairs when his wife arrived. Their eyes locked, then quickly broke as she looked down to his disturbingly light package.
“I found her in the shed.” was the husband’s reply to his wife’s unspoken question when her eyes met his again. “She’s barely breathing. I need your help.”
Irisviel nodded and the two headed to their room.
-scenebreak-
It was sometime later that Kiritsugu found himself standing in the porch, a lighted stick of cigarette in his hands.
He had been quickly sent out of his bedroom, more of a gesture to let himself relax than to stand there and do nothing but be tense.
It wasn’t like he could do anything to help his wife with the child other than that. His entire brand of magecraft focused simply on helping him achieve his tasks, usually killing someone. It lacked any form of supportive or regenerative Mysteries that would be helpful in healing others... thus, he stood out here, letting the tension that had gripped him the moment he had awoken slowly flow out.
Around half an hour later, he heard the familiar footfalls of his spouse, along with her presence.
“How is she?” the first question out of his mouth.
His radiant wife - well, not so radiant from both the lack of sleep and magical energy - smiled at him, her eyes lighting up in the way he always loved.
“She’s fine now. Other than a severe lack of prana, she’s a picture of health.” she said lightly, then, without warning, her eyes drooped and she stumbled forward.
Kiritsugu caught her before she even fell.
“Iri-!”
“Ah, sorry, Kiri~” the white-haired maiden let out sheepishly as she let him help her stand up, “I used up quite a lot of od from transferring it to her.”
“You donated your prana to her without a ritual?” a note of confusion entered his voice, “Shouldn’t that be impossible?”
“Yep!” Irisviel said, “But, interestingly enough, her body ate up my prana when it made contact to her. It seemed like her lack of od made her body seek out any source of prana to consume, so I gave her some~”
“Iri...”
“I’m okay, if that’s what you’re asking, Kiri~” she let out a giggle and she did a small twirl... only to stumble again. She managed to right herself before she fell, though. “I just underestimated how much I needed to give to get herself back to stable conditions. It’s a bit scary how much prana she has. It’s even more than what I have when I’m topped up from doing our prana exchange rituals~”
That surprised Kiritsugu, “What.”
“Yep!” she grinned, “But before anything else, do you want to see her?”
-scenebreak-
“She looks like Illya.”
That was his first observation of the girl he found in his shed.
Bedecked with some spare clothes of his daughter, a simple white nightgown, the still unnamed girl had a disturbing resemblance to his youngest. In fact, if you changed her hair to white instead of that shade of red that was like his son’s....
“She does, doesn’t she.” his wife agreed from beside him, “In fact, other than the hair and eyes, she has exactly the same body as our daughter’s.”
That got his attention. He looked at her intently, his stare voicing his unspoken question. How.
“...muuuuu...”
A pair of eyes, one ruby red and the other charcoal black, snapped to the suddenly mobile form of the topic of their discussion.
The girl was writhing on their bed, her body unconsciously moving her around and stretching her once inert body as if it were suddenly uncomfortable.
Kiritsugu leaned over and gently caught her errant limbs and settled them back to where they were before she had started moving.
The action itself, as gentle as it was, made the girl’s entire body stiffen, then slowly relaxed as he moved away.
The husband looked back to his wife, who seemed lost at what had happened.
“...Tou-san?”
That voice, his daughter’s voice, made the man known as the Magus Killer turn back to where the once restless child lay.
Amber eyes met black.
He froze. Those bleary amber eyes brought him back to a time, ten years ago, where eyes of that same shade stared at him as he pulled another child from searing heat and agonizing fire.
Those same eyes now stared at him again, a little bit unfocused from coming out of sleep, but it was the same eyes nonetheless.
“...Shirou?” the name went past his lips before his mind managed to process it. He felt the surprised look of his wife pierce him from behind.
The eyes blinked, then looked away, towards the ceiling.
“...I guess... I’m dead then.”
What.
The eyes closed, a small sigh came from between her lips, then they looked back at me, still unfocused, her lips were slightly upturned, with relief, it seemed.
“...I managed to save them... at least.”
The eyes closed again, and stayed close as the rhythmic breathing of sleep took over the girl’s body.
...and left Kiritsugu standing there with a look of pure confusion and dread.