Urobuchi, p.2
Urobuchi, page 2
Natalia shrugged her shoulders. Perhaps she had already become accustomed to such scenes. It was as if the woman in black emanated the smell of death from her entire body.
"Alright, boy, let's get back to the previous question. It's about time for you to answer my question.
The so-called Sealing Designation – do you know what that means? Also, where is the evil magus, who’s the culprit of this vampire incident, hiding on this island? Do you know of it?”
※※※※※※
Although those words sounded too deep for this boy, in truth it hit the bull’s eye of this problem in some way.
Kerry is not the boy’s real name.
The name of the boy, who was born in a foreign, remote country, was very hard to pronounce for the people here. At the very beginning it was Shirley who abbreviated his name into Kerry, and then the villagers all called him Kerry by habit. The boy also felt that, instead of being called a strange name such as 'Keritougu’, ‘Kerry’
sounded much friendlier.
The boy’s real name is – Kiritsugu.
The son of the magus who has been given a Sealing Designation, Emiya Norikata.
※※※※※※
In the deep night, Kiritsugu returned to the wooden villa in the depths of the jungle, and saw his father receiving him with a worried expression.
"Ahh, Kiritsugu. Are you alright? Thank goodness…"
His father embraced him. It has been many years since he felt his father’s broad shoulders. It was a rare moment for his strong father to express his true feelings like that.
After releasing Kiritsugu from his arms, his father's expression suddenly turned severe and said.
"I told you not to step out of the barrier of the forest today no matter what. Why did you disobey me?"
"... Because I was worried about Shirley…"
His father suddenly turned his eyes aside when he heard the girl's name. Just that small gesture could completely confirm one fact.
"Dad, did you know what changes happened to her body? Is that why you didn’t allow me to go outside?"
"… About that girl, it's really a pity. Although I told her the reagent was very dangerous and to never touch it, it seems she still didn't win over her own curiosity."
Although his father’s tone was filled with bitterness, there was no regret or shame in it. It was as if he was telling off a boy who broke a flower vase with only blame and anger in his tone.
"... Dad, why would you investigate the Dead Apostles?"
"Of course that’s not my true intention. However, being the research of us, the Emiya family, we should seek it no matter how far it seems. I have to come up with a solution for aging, at least before your generation. The flesh, shackled with the destiny of death, is really too far away from the 'root'."
Shirley’s pitiful sight that he saw under the light of the moon once again appeared before Kiritsugu.
"Dad... would you eventually turn me into that shape too?"
"Nonsense. Someone who cannot control the vampiric urges and becomes a Dead Apostle is a failure... I told Shirley this a long time ago. Looks like the results of this
experiment isn’t as good as I thought it’d be. I’d have to start from the basics and modify my theories again."
"... I see."
Kiritsugu nodded and said.
His father seemed to be intent in continuing. There’s no need to pay attention to sacrifices of this degree. He still needs to keep repeating it until he gets a satisfactory result.
"Kiritsugu, we’ll talk about this later. Now our top priority is to hurry and escape – I'm afraid there’s no longer time to pack. Soon those guys from the Association would see through the barrier in this dense forest. We need to leave soon."
Looks like his father made the preparations to leave a long time ago. There were already two large suitcases packed and sitting in the middle of the room. The reason he had delayed till now – was probably waiting for his own child to return.
"... Are we escaping? Right now?"
"I knew a long time ago this day would come, so I prepared a motor boat on the southern coast beforehand. You can never be too prepared.”
His father took one suitcase in each of his hands, turned around and walked towards the porch – of course, at this moment he was not guarded at all.
Then, Kiritsugu took the pistol Natalia gave to him from his trouser pocket.
It was a .32 caliber pistol. If it was fired from point-blank range, even a child can easily hit the target. The woman in black assured him of that. After that, it'd be all Kiritsugu's concern.
While aiming the gun at his father's defenseless back, the scene of village that was burned to the ground and Shirley’s final tragic expression swelled up within the boy’s heart – also, all the memories he had after living with his father for ten years, and the gentle sentiments that was hidden beneath his father’s stoic look.
His father loves him, and is full of expectations of him. He also loves his father deeply, and is proud of him.
Endless feeling tangled up and Kiritsugu wanted to close his eyes. However, contrary to his sentiments, Kiritsugu opened his eyes and aimed, then swiftly pressed the trigger.
Bam – it was an unexpected, dry and crisp sound.
His father, shot from the back of the neck, fell forward. Then Kiritsugu walked up and continued to fire towards the back of his head twice. Then he stopped, and continued to give two more shots to his back.
He couldn't believe it. Even Kiritsugu himself was afraid of his own coldness.
He wavered to the end. Certainly there was struggle in his heart. However, his hand moved as if everything was pre-established and out of his control. His body completely disregarded the thoughts in his heart, and only mechanically carried out things that 'had to be done'.
This behavior may be regarded as a talent – this thought only flicked past his heart briefly. After that, Kiritsugu once again sank into emptiness, with no sense of accomplishment.
The wooden floor gradually became stained red with blood. Father wasn't there anymore. What lay there was nothing but a corpse. This thing was the culprit. This thing rubbed away everything he had, killed everyone on the island, and burnt the village to the ground.
Shirley said he is an amazing person, someone with the power to change the world.
Kiritsugu thought so as well once upon a time.
What did the two youngsters understand about the way of magecraft? And what did they expect of magi?
At the beginning, Kiritsugu didn't realize he was crying. Even he didn’t know whether his current feelings were sadness or regret. All he felt was an emptiness as if he was drained to the core.
The gun in his right hand was very heavy, almost too heavy to lift up. However, he couldn't throw it away. His fingers froze on the trigger and couldn’t move.
Kiritsugu even risked the danger of accidentally firing and swung his right hand crazily just to try to throw the gun away. But it was all useless; his fingers were holding the gun tightly as if they were glued to it.
At that moment, somebody suddenly grabbed his wrist, and then easily took the gun away from his hand. Only then did Kiritsugu realize Natalia had already appeared beside him.
"C’mon, the bounded field here isn’t as exaggerated as you said. I got in easily."
Natalia said with a rather scolding tone.
"... Are you angry?"
"You think? I’ve never given this thing for kids to play with."
Natalia glanced at the gun she took from Kiritsugu, then she put it back into her pocket after locking the safety again.
"However, it was up to your luck to see if you can make it on time."
In fact, if all that didn’t happen just now, Emiya Norikata would surely have escaped safely and went into hiding again, then restarted his research on the Dead Apostles at some other unknown place. Maybe the tragedy triggered on this island would happen once again.
This isn’t a problem than can be solved by luck. This is something that has to be stopped.
"This man, had a reason that he has to be killed – I have no other choice."
"I even encouraged a child to kill his own father; I really am a very bad person.”
Natalia said, discouraged. Hearing this, Kiritsugu smiled with traces of tears still on his face.
"... You, are a good person."
Natalia looked, stunned, at Kiritsugu’s smile. Then she sighed and heaved the corpse of Emiya Norikata onto her shoulder.
"I'll take you out of the island. You need to decide what comes afterwards yourself –
is there anything you’d like to take with you?"
"Nothing at all."
※※※※※
Then… Kiritsugu spent the following few years beside Natalia Kaminski.
Naturally, Natalia didn't look after him like an orphan or her adopted child, but ordered Kiritsugu around as an assistant or servant. However, this was just what Kiritsugu desired.
He studied Natalia’s skills and trained his own abilities at the same time in order to walk the same path as Natalia – to become a ‘hunter’. This is the unchangeable path that Kiritsugu chose for his life.
The tragedy at Arimago Island was not a rare event. Such tragedies are repeated over and over again like daily occurrences in the shadowy places of the world.
The magi who are willing to bring ill omen into the mortal world in order to seek the knowledge that they search for and the two large organizations that used any methods necessary to hide these facts; the battle surrounding these mysterious events kept occurring at obscure places. Precisely because of this, there’s money to be made for Natalia.
Eliminating magi such as Emiya Norikata is really too far from the ideal of preventing such tragedies from happening again – if could almost be said that Emiya Norikata was only one drop of water in the vast ocean, an existence that could almost be afforded to be completely ignored.
His action on that day, killing his father by his own hands; if he was to make that event meaningful and worthy...
Then that means all heretic magi like his father must be killed. Only then can he truly prevent tragedies from occurring again.
Sealing Designation Enforcers.
Hound dogs that hunt demons that have surpassed ordinary sense. The boy chose this thorny road of Shuras without a moment’s hesitation.
Natalia does not belong to an organization, and was only a freelancer who hunted with bounty as her goal. Her targets are those Sealing Designated magi who possess precious research results, but have left the Magi’s Association and conducted secret researches. Different from the Holy Church that acted in the name of judging all heretics and killed everyone, the Magi’s Association had ensuring the safety of the research results as its priority.
And what’s the most precious of all are the Magic Crests carved on the magi’s flesh.
Magic Crests that are created through generations of research can produce even greater powers when it is passed onto the successor, especially for magi families.
Through negotiations Natalia had made with the Association, a section of the Magic Crests gathered from Emiya Norikata’s body was allowed to be inherited by his son Emiya Kiritsugu. Although the important parts were confiscated by the Association and only a ‘fragment’ of barely half the original amount was allowed for Emiya Kiritsugu to inherit, it was enough for Kiritsugu to use his abilities as a magus.
Besides, Kiritsugu didn’t have the intention of following his father’s dying wish and continuing magecraft research to begin with.
For Kiritsugu, magecraft isn’t his life-long career, but just a tool used to achieve his goals. Moreover, this tool was only one of the many ‘tools’ that the boy learnt from the huntress.
Tracking, assassination, the usage of various weapons – there can’t be only one
‘fang’ for a hound. All sorts of knowledge and skills are necessary for him to master in order to be able to catch up to the pray under all situations and conditions and bring it down.
In a sense, the history of human beings is a history of killing. Humans spent an endless amount of time and intelligence to research the skill of ‘killing people’ in order to hunt down the ‘two-legged beasts’ that looked the same as themselves.
Kiritsugu had made his own body master all these.
The years covered in blood and gunpowder passed by flying.
Emiya Kiritsugu, who experienced the trials of too many violent battles during a time as sensitive as adolescence, no longer has any youthful innocence on his face. As an oriental person of unknown age, his three different false passports all recorded him as an adult and they hadn’t been questioned a single time.
However, judging only from his appearance, although his figure isn’t very tall and his moustache is sparse, his grim and cold look is definitely not something that a teenage boy should have.
One day –
Even when he knew that his teacher and friend – Natalia – faced the worst danger in her life, Kiritsugu still didn’t show any emotional wavering and devotedly completed his duty.
No matter how anxious or wavering his heart is, there was not a single way to help Natalia. That’s because her battlefield is inside a giant commercial airliner more than 3000 feet above in the sky.
It started with the chase for the magus known as the “Demonic Bees User”, Od Volsack.
It was said that this magus successfully created Dead Apostles and can manipulate the Demonic Bees under his control to use poisonous stings to increase the amount of Ghouls under his power; a very dangerous man indeed. Moreover, he had changed his name and face and pretended to be an ordinary person, with no information about him at all. However, four days ago, there was information that he was taking Flight A300 from Paris to New York. In the situation of being completely ignorant of the person’s appearance and name, Natalia accepted this gruelling task of finding the target among the plane’s 287 passengers and ‘erase’ him.
As her partner, Kiritsugu didn’t board the plane, but instead went ahead to New York to investigate Volsack’s fake identity. The teacher and student communicated using radio and calmly and confidently locked down the location of the prey in that sealed space 3000 feet above the sky.
Approximately three hours after the takeoff – the assassination was achieved unexpectedly smoothly. However, that was the beginning of the tragedy.
The Ghoul Bees that Volsack brought into the plane through deceiving customs caused a fatal disturbance after the death of their master. The Ghoul Bees that Natalia didn’t destroy on time raided towards the passengers one by one, and the cabin of the giant commercial airliner turned into a living hell ravaged by Ghouls in the blink of an eye.
Faced with a sealed area with nowhere to escape and Ghouls that manipulated without end, even someone as strong as Natalia felt an endless despair. Faced with this worsening situation, Kiritsugu could do nothing and can only wait for the radio communication. He must not let go of any chance of proving that Natalia was still alive.
The basic rule that Natalia had instructed Kiritsugu over and over again is – ‘no matter what method you use, you must ensure your own survival’. Since she has such a creed, Kiritsugu firmly believed that experienced huntress can definitely make it out this time too. After two hours, the radio was still silent.
Finally, when the light of the stars in the night sky was covered by the cyan shade of dawn, the tired voice of a woman was transmitted with static.
“… Can you hear me? Kid… you aren’t asleep, right?”
“Loud and clear, Natalia. We’re both at that most sleepy time right before dawn, after staying awake for the entire night.”
“Of course. If you dared to go back and sleep last night I’ll definitely kill you afterwards… well, there’s some good news and some bad news. Which one do you want to listen to first?”
Natalia laughed briefly and said so.
“Didn’t we promise to start with the good news?”
“Ok. Then it’s good news first. First of all, I’m alive. The plane is without damage as well. I’ve just ensured the safety of the cockpit; both the captain and the co-pilot have already set the flying perimeters before their death. Even I can manage to simply drive it. Apparently the controls are the same as a Cessna.”
“Did you communicate with the control tower?”
“Got them. At the beginning they thought it was a prank, but now they’re directing me well.”
“… Then, the bad news?”
“Mm – I was the only one who didn’t get bitten. All passengers and crew, all 300 of them, perished and became Ghouls. The other side of the cockpit, divided only by a panel, already became a flying city of the dead. Don’t be surprised now.”
“…”
That’s the worst situation Kiritsugu had thought of.
“In that condition, will you… come back alive?”
“Ahh, this door is pretty rigid. Although it’s a bit wobbly now, there’s no worry about it being broken – Instead, the landing makes me more insecure. Can this giant thing really land safely?”
“… If it’s you, then you’ll surely manage.”
“Was that you encouraging me? I’m glad to hear.”
After a bitter laugh, Natalia gave a powerless sigh.
“There are still 50 minutes before arriving at the airport. It’s too early to pray – kid, chat with me for a while.”
“… I don’t mind.”
So they started a random conversation. First, they began with those two hours when communication ceased. Then they listed the dead Volsack’s many evil deeds in detail. Finally, the two of them naturally remembered the magi and Dead Apostles that they had destroyed, and those Shura’s fields that the two had faced together.
Natalia, who was usually quiet, became talkative for some reason today. The low roar of the Ghouls coming in from the cabin intertwined with the sound of them repeatedly hitting the cockpit’s door. Chatting is the single best choice to distract one’s attention from that.
“– When you first told me you want to enter this career path, I was having a real headache for a long time. Moreover, you didn’t want to change your idea no matter how much I persuaded you.”
