In the end, Shirou and the girl didn't come to blows.
Both restrained themselves. The street was already devastated, and Shirou had no wish to add further wounds to it.
He suddenly remembered the people still trapped beneath the rubble. Filled with regret and guilt, he quickly ran to the collapsed buildings, desperately searching for survivors.
The girl didn't stand idly by either; she joined the rescue efforts immediately, even though the disaster itself had been her doing.
Yet she showed no remorse. To her, inflicting punishment and saving lives were both expressions of the same justice—punishing criminals and rescuing civilians were equally righteous.
There was no contradiction in her mind.
Shirou certainly wouldn't stop her just because their ideologies clashed; in rescue work, every extra pair of hands was valuable.
Soon after they had pulled the survivors free, the Imperial Security Forces finally arrived.
Having recently learned about the Empire's history, Shirou knew exactly what kind of force they represented. Nowadays, the Security Forces were merely tools wielded by powerful officials to oppress the common people.
Their delayed response, in Shirou's eyes, was clearly suspicious.
"Captain Seryu, forgive us for arriving late!" A young soldier at the front of the squad saluted respectfully to the girl.
"No," Seryu corrected him calmly, shaking her head with an earnest expression. "The title of captain belongs to my master. I'm just temporarily filling in for him, so please don't call me that."
Captain…?
Shirou recalled the conversation with Lubbock earlier. He had mentioned a captain who had framed many innocent people, ultimately executed by Night Raid.
Given Lubbock's clear bias toward Night Raid, Shirou had been cautious about fully trusting that account. After all, Lubbock was Night Raid's intelligence operative; subtle manipulation of facts was his specialty. Nonetheless, Shirou had absorbed many insights into the Empire's corrupt reality from their talk.
As for ordinary citizens—they struggled daily to survive, having no energy to spare for political intrigue. For them, whether the captain lived or died hardly mattered; tomorrow's meal was a far more pressing issue.
Yet Shirou held no favorable opinion of Night Raid either. Mercenaries who killed for payment, even if their targets were human scum, still left him uneasy.
Besides, Liver had informed him of Night Raid's indiscriminate slaughter in some noble residences. Shirou never trusted one-sided accounts. Only witnessing something with his own eyes could convince him fully.
"You there—what's your name?"
Seryu's voice suddenly pulled Shirou from his thoughts.
"Emiya Shirou."
Without warning, Seryu leaned forward, her face mere inches from Shirou's own, staring fiercely into his eyes.
"The moment you hesitated about punishing those criminals, you forfeited your right to justice! I embody absolute justice!"
With those words, she turned sharply and left, never looking back.
The security forces followed her, casting mocking glances at Shirou as they departed.
Hesitation…?
Shirou felt a mix of amusement and bitterness at her accusation.
...
In fact, it was Seryu's unquestioning decisiveness that had led to this catastrophe in the first place.
Those bullies had merely been impoverished commoners; even the late-arriving soldiers could have arrested them easily without causing such widespread destruction and innocent deaths.
Choosing between ten and ten thousand people, huh…?
He suddenly recalled Seryu's earlier challenge. Shirou had no clear answer for this dilemma. If forced to choose, he would rather fight desperately to save everyone instead of deciding who lived and who died.
He had no right to determine others' lives; his only duty was to save as many as he possibly could.
At that moment, Shirou finally understood the uncomfortable feeling he'd sensed from Seryu's justice.
In their argument, he had initially assumed she'd choose to save the ten thousand without hesitation. But if the scenario shifted—if the ten people were citizens of the Empire, and the ten thousand were foreigners—she would unquestionably choose the ten Empire citizens.
Her justice was purely Imperial justice.
Killing criminals mercilessly, rescuing citizens buried beneath rubble—these were both manifestations of what she cared about and didn't care about.
She cared little for innocents as such—only for the Empire itself.
The standard by which she judged everything was solely the Empire, not humanity. If the Empire told her certain people had betrayed it, she would slaughter them all without hesitation or questioning. After all, the Empire defined justice, and she was its executor.
She would willingly sacrifice everything for the Empire—not for humanity itself.
However, what Shirou didn't know was that Seryu's understanding of justice had not developed through her own experiences, as his had. Hers had been forcefully taught and molded by someone else.
"It's time to move!"
Just as Shirou lost himself in contemplation, Liver knocked loudly at his door, signaling another night of operations.
Esdeath was due back in the capital in a few days, and their true mission was about to begin.
If Shirou thought that the Three Beasts would only assassinate one minister per night, that would be naively optimistic.
Yesterday's mission had merely been a test of Shirou's responses. Tonight would mix truth and lies in earnest.
They planned to swiftly assassinate numerous Imperial ministers. Some were righteous and devoted to the Empire; others were irredeemable scum.
Tonight's heavy workload was designed to keep Shirou busy and overwhelmed, unable to accurately determine who deserved death and who didn't.
No matter how talented Shirou was, he couldn't be everywhere at once. He'd be forced to rely heavily on the intelligence provided by Liver and his comrades, giving him few chances for independent judgment.
Even if Shirou managed to identify a few righteous ministers and spared them, it wouldn't matter. They could simply blame the Empire's upper ranks for their deaths. Esdeath cared little whether her subordinates served the Empire faithfully—her only requirement was absolute loyalty to her.
There was no way Shirou could save all the Empire's decent officials. Some would inevitably fall by his own hands or those of the Three Beasts.
Besides, the Three Beasts wouldn't always act together. Liver, Nyau, and Daidara could operate independently, assassinating their targets before Shirou had a chance to confirm their guilt or innocence.