The moment their hands touched, there was no earth-shaking magical eruption—nor did any strange, dangerous spell activate.
What remained was only a torrent of cold, boundless memories, filled with sorrow and a sense of fate—like a dam breaking and a flood overwhelming even the last mental defenses Kiritsugu had built from reason and ruthlessness.
This is... Hell.
Kiritsugu's awareness was instantly drawn into a sea of flames.
Under the curse of the Grail, the city of Fuyuki was incinerated.
Countless screams, deaths, and despair—
—the very sight I had always tried to avoid, isn't it?
Why… why did such a thing befall this city?
He walked numbly through the hell of his own making, his soul already scorched by endless self-reproach.
Until he beheld a miracle rising from beneath the rubble. The empty-eyed boy, as if he had lost the whole world.
At that moment, Kiritsugu felt salvation.
For the first time—hot tears flowed from his long-dried, lifeless eyes.
He had found the only reason to forgive himself.
The images shifted.
A summer night, the Emiya household garden awash in moonlight.
He sat on the porch, speaking to the boy he'd adopted and named "Shirou."
The curse of the Grail had already begun eroding his body. He knew his own time was short.
When the boy asked about his dreams, Kiritsugu recalled it only as an ancient, foolish fairy tale, and with self-mockery and relief, uttered the words he'd long discarded: "ally of justice."
It was meant as a joke.
A loser's self-deprecating remark on his life.
But he never expected the pure child would take him so seriously.
The memories accelerated.
He saw how the boy named Shirou Emiya continued for ten long years, doggedly training in magecraft every day, chasing a dream he could not truly understand.
And once again—the Holy Grail War erupted.
Facing life and death, the boy summoned his golden-haired knight as his Servant.
Everything felt like a repetition of fate; all paths seemed to lead to the same destination.
Yet in the end, only tragedy remained.
After destroying the Grail, Kiritsugu watched Saber fade away with the morning sun, while still haunted by unsolved regrets and sadness.
After the battles, he saw his son helplessly holding the hand of another girl—their beloved daughter, Illya, who truly ought to have grown up happy at home.
The visions stopped at Illya's hospital bed.
Her long silver hair spread over the pillow; her ruby eyes had lost their luster, but still, looking at her "brother," she managed the last, gentlest smile of her life.
–And then… she slowly stopped breathing.
Kiritsugu felt as if his heart were clutched by an invisible hand—his heartbeat nearly ceasing.
He watched as the son who inherited his ideals was unable to do anything as his own younger sister died.
…It's not over.
The current of memory grew more violent— and more desperate.
He saw Shirou Emiya, even to old age, clinging stubbornly to the joke he'd made on his deathbed.
During a nuclear accident, to save 500 ordinary people who could not normally be saved, the young Shirou signed a pact with Alaya, the world's Counter Force, selling everything he would possess after death.
And he succeeded.
Later, while acting in the Middle East, he managed to stop a war and became a hero.
But immediately afterwards, the very people he had saved condemned him as "a perpetrator of war" and sentenced him to be hanged.
As he was sent to the gallows, even he felt relief—convinced that, by the pact, "after death, he could continue to save even more people." At that time, he had no complaint regarding his own death.
...But he'd obviously misunderstood that contract terribly.
His ideal goal was fulfilled—
But the concrete means and method were utterly different from what he'd hoped for.
Death was not the end.
Rather, it was the beginning of a new, eternal hell.
Kiritsugu's soul, along with the other's, was dragged into that endless battlefield.
He watched as Shirou, now called "Counter Force"—summoned time and again to cleanse human calamities by plunging into the world's filth.
He killed, and killed, and kept killing—
Killing until his hands were stained with blood, until his eyes grew numb, until the ideal he began with was worn down to nothing but hatred.
There, before him, he saw a face resembling his adopted son—but now filled with weariness, self-mockery, and self-loathing—this was the adult Heroic Spirit, Emiya.
From deep within that soul, Kiritsugu heard a painful cry:
"—I am here to save people... just what do you want from me?!
I really want to kill my past self.
If only… if I hadn't inherited that damned ideal…"
Boom—!!!
At that instant, the dam of reason was swept away by a flood of guilt and despair.
"Ugh…ahhhh…!"
Kiritsugu Emiya yanked back his hand as if burnt by hot iron, staggering back two steps, barely managing to keep upright by leaning against the wall.
He was breathing hard, cold sweat beading on his brow—his face, always so blank, was completely shattered.
Shock, pain, disbelief, regret, self-reproach…
Like the flood breaking a dam, countless fierce emotions swept over him, washing away his unchanged face for the first and last time.
For the first time, tears welled up in his empty eyes.
He slowly raised his head and looked, once more, at the quietly waiting child.
Now, there was no more suspicion, no more probing, nor any vigilance in his gaze.
Instead, there was something that stirred even Archer's soul—a feeling unreal and yet intimately familiar to his current age.
It was the exact expression—kindness mixed with deep regret—that his foster father had, when he saved him from hell ten years ago.
"…Shirou…"
Kiritsugu's voice was hoarse to the point of inaudibility.
He struggled to pronounce the name he'd only ever uttered toward the future.
"I see... so that's how it is..."
As if muttering not just to himself, but to everyone present, he asked—
"Was the justice I sought, and the ideal I entrusted, in the end, nothing but a curse dragging myself and everyone else into hell?"
In that moment, the "Magus Killer" died.
What was left…
Was only a failed father, who'd witnessed the end of his own ideal—and felt nothing but endless remorse.
He looked once again to Steve.
His gaze had returned to a deathly calm, but now with a tinge of pleading, as if clinging to a final question.
"Caster… you showed me all this to tell me… there's still a chance for redemption, isn't there?"
Steve looked at the man, now completely broken and at a loss for support, but gave neither advantage nor false comfort.
He simply waited in quiet patience for his opponent's chaotic feelings to settle within this cruel reality.
Finally, when Kiritsugu asked his last question, Steve sensed the time had come.
Steve's look of pity faded.
Instead, he wore the calm, confident smile of a "builder."
"To some extent."
He answered serenely.
Those words, like a single beam of sunlight, pierced the darkness of Kiritsugu's heart, refocusing the confusion in his gaze.
"The reason I came here was precisely to make the wishes of all participants in this war come true as much as possible."
Steve rose from the sofa and strode to the center of the living room.
Sunlight poured through the floor-to-ceiling window behind him, outlining his figure in a golden halo, as if announcing the will of a god.
"Kiritsugu, Irisviel, Saber, and… Shirou."
It was the first time he addressed the boy in this way, causing him to tremble.
"What I'm about to explain is the entire solution—all that I call the 'Jewel Sword Pan.'"
Ignoring their astonished expressions, Steve marched straight to the heart of the matter, repeating for all a plan he'd already revealed to young Red Archer.
The entire plan was perfect.
It took into account the needs, personalities, and latent issues of nearly every participant. This was no longer a war, but a grand and refined project meant "to save everyone."
Kiritsugu listened intently.
His "Magus Killer" mind desperately analyzed the feasibility and risk of every detail.
He realized—there were no fatal flaws.
Hope was real.
The road to salvation lay before them.
With a heavy thud, Kiritsugu collapsed completely onto the rear sofa, all strength drained away.
He buried his face in his hands, his shoulders shaking violently.
Only much later did he finally raise his head—his despair gone, his eyes wet anew with tears.
Instead, the flames of rebirth flickered in them—as though he'd survived a catastrophe.
"…I see."
He fixed his eyes on Steve.
His voice was still hoarse, but more steadfast than ever.
"Caster—no, Mr. Steve.
From now on, everything I possess… will be devoted to realizing this plan.
Please… I beg you, save my family, and that child as well…"
"Kiritsugu…"
Irisviel wept tears of joy, hugging her husband tightly.
"Master…"
Even Saber smiled in heartfelt relief.
A powerful new alliance—united by the aim of saving the future—was formally born in this moment.
…