MMMS 53

Kiritsugu pulled the trigger and took a long drag from his cigarette, savoring both sensations equally.

The Origin Bullet found its mark. Through his 10x scope, he watched the black-haired boy collapse, screaming and thrashing on the ground.

The bullet wasn't ordinary—its core contained powder made from Kiritsugu's own ribs, compressed through spiritual engineering. A weapon carrying his essence of "severing and binding"—a sniper round designed to tear magi apart from the inside out.

A sniper gets one clean shot before everything changes. Once that crack echoes, your target knows you're there. Yet Kiritsugu hadn't used this precious chance on Morgan, obviously the most dangerous witch on the field.

Even Irisviel couldn't understand it. She'd specifically told her husband the boy was a Servant. Why take the wrong shot?

But Kiritsugu hadn't ignored his wife or missed anything happening below. He'd heard Morgan call the boy "Assassin" during their fight with Lancer. He knew exactly what had been said—and fired his bullet at the "Assassin" anyway.

Morgan was lying. The black-haired boy wasn't Assassin; he was the real Master. Kiritsugu knew it in his bones, that killer's instinct honed through decades of bloody work, backed by everything he'd uncovered since arriving in Fuyuki.

A week into the Holy Grail War, only five Master-Servant pairs had shown themselves. Rather than rushing in blind, Kiritsugu chose to dig deeper, hunting for the identities of those still hiding in the shadows.

His breakthrough came through digital breadcrumbs. The Sajyou family from Tokyo had been talking with the Matous from Fuyuki over the past year. Not solid evidence, but Kiritsugu had killed men on less. That's when the name "Ryuuto" first crossed his radar - spotted hanging around the Matou daughter.

Kiritsugu's face glowed blue in the darkness as he read the fresh email on his laptop.

"Kid's name is Ryuuto. Adoption records show he's the son of Manaka Sajyou, Hiroki Sajyou's daughter. But that's impossible... Hiroki's daughter is only 17 this year. Someone clearly tampered with the Ministry's records using magecraft. Ryuuto was born in 1982, making him 12 years old. No trace of him before the Sajyous took him in. Since landing in Tokyo, he's been burning through cash like it's nothing - has VIP access to nightclubs all over the city. Lost 20 million yen in a single day at Fuchu Racecourse."

"Sounds like a real piece of work," Maiya said from the corner, not looking up as she cleaned her rifle. "Par for the course with magus families, though."

"But his personality isn't the issue," she continued, checking the rifle's scope. "Maybe he's got rare magical talent. That would explain why the Sajyous wanted him—future heir or husband material for the daughter."

"If that were true, Hiroki Sajyou would have adopted him." Kiritsugu's fingers moved across the keyboard. "Why register him under his underage daughter instead? And there's something else. He got thrown out of a nightclub mid-spending spree when the staff suddenly realized he was just a kid."

"What are you saying?" she looked up from her weapon.

"He lost control of something—probably a Mystic Code that was hiding his true age. The glamour broke, and they saw the child underneath." he leaned back. "This Ryuuto has zero magical talent. He's just using magical tools to pass as an adult in places he shouldn't be."

"You think he's connected to what happened to the Matous?"

"I don't know yet. But I'm certain he's one of our Masters." Kiritsugu's voice dropped. "And he's extremely dangerous."

Maiya's eyes narrowed. "Dangerous how?"

He stared at the screen, his face hardening as he made his assessment. "Perhaps... even more dangerous than Kotomine Kirei."

"There's no logic to what he does. I can't figure out why he's in the Holy Grail War or what he wants from it." Kiritsugu rubbed his eyes. "If I had to guess—he sees this death match the same way he sees betting on horses. Just another game to kill time with. And yet the Holy Grail still gave him Command Spells." He stared at the screen, his expression hardening. "That fact alone is deeply concerning."

After a long silence, he turned to Maiya. "Any thoughts on this guy?"

"..." Maiya's face gave nothing away. She shook her head once. "No."

...

The cold night wind snapped Kiritsugu back to the present. He tightened his grip on the anti-materiel rifle and pressed his eye back to the scope. The smell of the forest suddenly made him remember something irrelevant. What was that comment from Lancer about "the boy humiliating a married woman"?

He shook his head. Irrelevant. Focus on what matters. Through the scope, he confirmed his target—Ryuuto lay broken, the Origin Bullet having done its work.

The black-haired boy probably had no idea what had just happened to him. The bullet had torn through his spine and shredded his organs, but those weren't the wounds that mattered. Any skilled magus could heal physical damage. The Origin Bullet's true purpose was to destroy the magic circuits themselves.

Magic circuits were like high-voltage power lines. The Origin Bullet was a drop of water hitting those lines—causing a catastrophic short-circuit that burned out the entire system. Permanent. Irreversible.

Ryuuto was number thirty-eight. Thirty-seven magi before him had fallen the same way, earning Kiritsugu his nickname "Magus Killer."

‘I was right. The boy is Morgan's real Master.’

But Kiritsugu felt no satisfaction. Only a cold dread crawling up his spine. Something wasn't right. He couldn't pinpoint what, but the feeling wouldn't leave.

Was it because Maiya wasn't here? She'd asked to join him for tonight's operation, but he'd refused her.

She must have noticed—that he didn't trust her anymore.

Kiritsugu clenched his jaw. He should have brought her. He shouldn't have doubted her...

"...!" Kiritsugu froze. Morgan's words before the battle suddenly hit him: "Assassin, don't interfere."

He'd dismissed it as the witch's misdirection about Ryuuto's identity, ignoring the obvious problem with that theory.

Assassin would never fight three servant classes head-on. Nobody puts their assassin in direct combat.

The first part of Morgan's statement had to be false... but what if the second part wasn't? What if the mighty Queen truly feared her Master would steal her prey—King Arthur?

A wind rose through the trees.

Not the hot blast from the holy lance, but something else—a cold that bit into Kiritsugu's face like tiny knives.

A shadow darker than the night itself spread beneath his feet. The forest around him seemed to warp. "...What is this?"

The ground transformed into something impossible—a sea of Imaginary Numbers that shouldn't exist, where reality and illusion crashed together. When Kiritsugu forced himself to look directly at the shadow, his breath caught in his throat.

A body vast as a mountain. Wings sharp enough to slice the sky. A dragon's head crowned with terrible blasphemy. Something dragon-shaped but infinitely more wrong—more alien and horrifying than any dragon could ever be.

Kiritsugu's body moved before his mind could process what he was seeing.

"Time alter—Triple accel!"

The spell left his lips without hesitation. The world around him crawled to a near-standstill as his perception kicked into overdrive. His eyes absorbed three times the normal information. His heart hammered at triple speed. Every cell in his body accelerated.

He abandoned the anti-materiel rifle and launched himself away, tearing through the forest at high speed.

Someone was hunting him. That was all he needed to know. Decisive action was Kiritsugu's trademark—even knowing the triple-speed Innate Time Control would ravage his body afterward.

He moved faster than the human eye could track. Even Artoria's lightning-quick assault from earlier would have seemed sluggish by comparison. This wasn't just physical enhancement—it was the manipulation of time itself.

In the Type-Moon world, Time Manipulation didn't qualify as true Magic. It involved cutting a specific space from the "flow of time" of the outside world. In many ways, Time Manipulation resembled a Reality Marble—a grand sorcery that rewrote the rules of reality.

Kiritsugu's time manipulation was his ultimate escape plan—a personal Reality Marble that accelerated only himself. Even a skilled Assassin couldn't match this speed when he went all out.

But footsteps pounded behind him. Getting closer with each second.

Someone was gaining on him.

That alone wasn't what turned his blood to ice—if he'd been chased by heroes famous for godlike speed like the Greek immortal or Celtic hound, he'd understand the pursuit.

What truly terrified him was that the footsteps behind him matched his own rhythm perfectly.

How? It defied everything he knew.

Was his pursuer using the same time acceleration?

His Innate Time Control was formidable, but it had its exceptions. Certain "beings" existed outside its rules—those connected to the Root, Beasts of Calamity… and so on.

There were also beings with [Independent Manifestation] skill who existed beyond normal constraints. They could appear in any era of human history once conditions were met. They transcended life, death, and time itself—immune to instant death and time manipulation.

When facing a time manipulator, they could simply sync their time with their target's.

Such monsters appeared once in a millennium. Or so it should have been.

A hand clamped onto Kiritsugu's shoulder from behind, its grip unyielding. It stopped him instantly despite his momentum, then forced him to turn around.

"!"