Let me tell you a man’s story.
The story of a man who is more idealistic than anyone else, and therefore more desperate than anyone else.
The man's dream was simple.
I hope that everyone in this world can be happy, and I have always prayed for this in my heart.
This is a naive ideal that every teenager has dreamed of at one time or another, but will give up and abandon after realizing the cruelty of reality.
All children learn this simple truth as they grow up: happiness comes at a price.
But this man was different.
Maybe he is dumber than anyone else; maybe there is something wrong with his brain; or maybe he has a destiny that transcends common sense and is the kind of person who is called a saint.
When he realized that all lives in this world were placed on the scale of "sacrifice" and "redemption", and that neither side could be left vacant...
From that day on, he determined to be the ruler of the scales.
If you want to reduce the sadness and resentment in the world more surely and effectively, there is only one way.
Even if there is only one person, he will abandon the smaller party in order to save the larger party.
This is an act of killing off the minority in order to allow the majority to survive.
Because the more he saved, the better he became at killing.
His hands were covered in layer upon layer of blood, but he never flinched.
Regardless of whether the means are justified or not; regardless of whether the purpose is right or not.
The man only wants to be a selfless and impartial balance.
Never misjudge the value of life.
A life, regardless of status, age or status, is just a quantitative unit.
Men save lives equally; they also kill people equally.
However, when he found out, it was too late.
To cherish all life equally also means to have no love for anyone.
If he had remembered this iron rule earlier, perhaps there would be a way to achieve redemption.
If he had frozen his young mind earlier, causing it to die, and turned himself into a bloodless and tearless measuring machine, perhaps he could have spent his entire life coldly selecting the living and the dead without worrying about it.
But this man was different.
The smile of others' joy satisfies his soul; the sound of others' pain shakes his spirit.
When I see others being wronged and unable to appeal, I feel angry; when I see someone shedding lonely tears, I can't help but reach out and wipe them away.
Although he pursues a dream that transcends common sense, he still retains too much humanity.
This contradiction has tormented men countless times.
Sometimes it's friendship, sometimes it's romance.
Even if the life he deeply loved was weighed against the lives of countless strangers, he would not make a mistake - he had never made a mistake since he woke up from the nightmare of losing the person he loved in his youth.
Precisely because he falls in love with someone else, he will treat that person's life equally with that of others, cherish it in the same way, and give it up in the same way.
He keeps meeting important people and losing them again and again.
The father who raised him.
The adoptive mother who accompanied him during his childhood.
Then, there was her beloved wife.
He already knew that he would lose her. His dream was too far away to be realized by human beings alone. If he wanted to realize it, he could only rely on the "miracle" called the "universal wishing machine". To achieve this miracle, a sacrifice must be made, and that is his wife. He had known this since the two met nine years ago.
I have been shaken, regretted, and suffered, but compared with the happiness of all mankind, all these seem too insignificant.
He believed it so firmly that when he heard that the only "miracle" that could fulfill his dream had long been shattered, although he was on the verge of collapse, he still held on to the last glimmer of hope, hoping that everyone was lying to him, hoping that they were wrong.
With this thought in mind, he jumped into the contents that were spilling out of the "Holy Grail".
As his consciousness blurred and his vision changed, he saw a dream.
In the dream, his wife was beside him, leaning against him with a gentle smile, and standing with him on the pile of corpses.
"I knew you would come, and I believed you could get here."
"Ellie - no, who are you? And where is this place?"
Although the woman in front of him looked exactly like his wife, he knew that she was not his wife.
It was not only because the woman was wearing black clothes that his wife never wore, but also because her temperament was completely different from his wife's.
"This is where your wish comes true, inside the Holy Grail you've been seeking."
The woman replied happily.
The man was speechless and looked around.
The black mud is like a moving ocean.
Everywhere there were small hills of rotting corpses, slowly sinking into the sea of black mud.
The sky was red, as red as blood. In the black mud rain, the dark sun supported the sky.
The wind that blows is a sound of curses and groans.
If I were to use words to describe it, this place... isn't it hell
"You said... this is the Holy Grail?"
"Yes. But you don't have to be afraid, because this is like an unreal dream without substance, just waiting for the moment of birth to come."
The woman pointed to the sky, gesturing to the man.
The man mistook it for the sun, but in fact, the center of the black world spinning in the sky was a "hole" in the sky. The hole was filled with endless deep darkness, and the super mass seemed to crush everything.
"That is the Holy Grail. It doesn't have a physical form yet, but it is full. All you have to do now is say a wish. It will choose the appropriate form that will fulfill whatever wish it receives. Once it has a physical form, it can go 'outside'."
"... "
"Come, please quickly give it a "form". You are the one who is qualified to give it a concept, so tell the Holy Grail your wish."
The man looked at the horrifying "hole". An ordinary human being would never be able to tolerate what was inside. He asked the question again.
"... Who are you? Why are you pretending to be my wife?"
The man suppressed his fear with anger and asked the woman in front of him.
"I'm Irisviel. You can think of me as Irisviel."
The man pulled out his most trusted magic weapon, a pistol with the performance of a rifle, and pointed it at the woman.
"Stop talking nonsense and answer quickly."
Facing the muzzle of the gun full of murderous intent, the woman in black smiled lonely, as if she felt sorry for the man for asking such a trivial matter.
"You are right. I cannot deny that this is a mask. If I don't use an existing personality as a 'shell', I can't communicate with others. In order to convey my hopes to you, I can only pretend to be like this. She is the person closest to you, and I choose to borrow her shell."
Men understand not with theory, but with intuition.
This being that exists "inside the Holy Grail" and claims to be "nobody" is—
"—are you the... will of the Holy Grail?"
"Yes, that's not wrong."
The thing that looked exactly like the man's wife nodded with satisfaction. But on the other hand, the man's brows were furrowed more and more due to more uneasy confusion.
"That's impossible. The Holy Grail is pure 'power'; it cannot possibly have any consciousness."
"Maybe it was true before, but it is different now. I have a will and a wish. My wish is to be born into this world."
"How could it be possible..."
Strange, so strange.
If what she said was true, then this was not a "wishing machine" that men always wanted and could do whatever they wanted.
"—If you have the will, then let me ask you. How does the Holy Grail intend to fulfill my wish?"
The woman tilted her head with a puzzled expression, as if the man had asked something very unbelievable.
"This kind of thing - you should know better than anyone, right?"
"... What did you say?"
"Your existence is already infinitely close to the Holy Grail, so you can still remain rational even now that you are connected to me. If you were an ordinary person, you would have already collapsed mentally when you came into contact with the black mud."
"You already know how to save the world. So I will follow your previous practice, accept your ideas, and realize your wishes."
"What are you—saying?"
Kiritsugu could not understand it. Because he was unwilling to understand it in this way no matter what.
"Answer me, what exactly does the Holy Grail do? What would happen if it were to come to the world?!"
"Then ask your heart."
A thin white hand covered the man's eyes, and the world turned dark.
There are two ships on the sea.
There are 300 people on one ship and 200 on another, a total of 500 passengers and you. Suppose these 501 people are the last survivors of humanity.
Then please answer.
"Two ships have a hole in their bottoms that cannot be repaired. You are the only one who can repair the ships. However, when you repair one ship, the other will sink. Which ship would you repair?"
"... a ship with three hundred people on board, of course." The man answered without hesitation.
"As soon as you decide to do this, the two hundred people on the other ship will hold you back and ask you to 'fix our ship first'. What should you do?"
"this... "
Before he could open his mouth to answer, an M950 submachine gun appeared in Kiritsugu's hand.
The gun was like an automatic machine, suddenly spurting out flames from the muzzle. The man just stared blankly.
Each bullet fired from the gun killed four people, and in the blink of an eye, all two hundred people were killed.
"—The correct answer. This is you."
The man stared blankly at the ship carrying a ship full of corpses sinking into the sea. He felt that the corpses lying on the deck seemed all familiar faces.
"Then the 300 survivors abandoned the damaged ship and boarded two new ships to continue sailing. This time, one ship had 200 people and the other had 100 people. However, a large hole appeared in the bottom of the two ships at the same time."
"Hey..." The man felt something was wrong.
"A hundred men in a small boat kidnap you and force you to repair their boat first. Well, what to do?"
"This... But..."
Before the man could answer, a white light flashed, a bomb exploded, and a hundred people became algae on the seabed. This was the man's way of doing things. Just like what he had done repeatedly before, he started killing.
"—correct answer."
"This isn't right... It can't be!"
This is not right.
There were only two hundred people left. For these two hundred people, three hundred people died. In this way, the needle of the scale was reversed.
"No, the calculations are correct. You are indeed sacrificing the few to save the many. Go to the next question."
The game manager continued, completely ignoring the man's protests.
One hundred and twenty were placed on the scales with eighty, and the man slaughtered the eighty.
Then came the eighty and forty. The man heard with his own ears the screams of the forty before they died. Every face seemed familiar, for they were the people he had killed in the past.
Sixty and Twenty—
Twenty-five vs. fifteen—multiple-choice questions go on and on;
The number of victims keeps increasing; the mountain of corpses keeps piling up.
"Is this... what you wanted me to see?"
The man felt sick of this cheap game, and he asked questions to the thing that called itself "The Will of the Holy Grail".
"Yes, this is your truth, the answer from Emiya Kiritsugu's heart, and the wish that the Holy Grail must fulfill as a wish-granting machine."
"No!" screamed the man whose hands were stained bright red.
"This is not my wish! I hope there is another way... So I can only rely on 'miracle';..."
"Your wish cannot be contained in a method you do not know. If you wish to save the world, you can only do it by the method you know."
"You must be kidding! What kind of miracle is this!?"
"It's a miracle. The wish that you have been longing for but cannot achieve on your own will be realized on a huge scale that cannot be accomplished by humans. What else can this be but a miracle?"
There were five people left, each of whom was the person the man valued the most. But he was still forced to choose three or two people.
The man cried in despair and pulled the trigger.
The father's head was blown off and the adoptive mother's brains were splattered.
"You... came to this world... intending to do these things to... intending to do these things to all mankind? You say this is the realization of my ideal!?"
"Of course. Your wish is the most suitable form for the Holy Grail. You are the one who is qualified to shoulder 'all the evils of this world'."
There are three people left. Should we save two of them or choose one
The hand holding the dagger was shaking.
The man's tears had dried, his eyes were as empty as those of a dead soul, and he swung his knife to cut open the body of his closest comrade.
He kept swinging the dagger in his hand, one strike after another.
In the end, only two people were left alive in this world.
An equivalent value that cannot be measured on a scale.
The last hope that has been guarded until now at the cost of 498 lives.
The man who had accomplished everything fell into a trance, like an empty shell in the warmth of the stove.
In a warm room with a gentle atmosphere that he missed, his "wife" and "daughter" were laughing happily.
In other words—this is the peaceful world he longs for.
A perfect world where there is no more fighting and no one gets hurt.
"Welcome home, Kiritsugu. You're finally back!"
The daughter's face was full of joy and she hung her two little hands around her father's neck.
This is a castle in the far north that is blocked by a blizzard. Only here is there a peaceful place.
After going through a bloody life, finally finding this non-existent happiness.
If this little children's room was everything in the world, there would be no need to worry about anything else.
"—Do you understand? This is the wish that the Holy Grail will grant you."
The wife smiled beautifully at her husband who was sharing this happy moment with her.
Then all you have to do is express your wish and expect it to happen.
All that is left is happiness.
The three of them will become the last humans and live happily forever on this Death Star where everything has been destroyed.
"... I can't go looking for walnut sprouts anymore..."
The scenery outside the window, even the blizzard scene, had disappeared, only the black mud as dark as the deep sea was flowing. The man muttered to himself as he looked at the scene outside the window.
The daughter shook her head and said to him.
"It doesn't matter. Illya is content as long as Kiritsugu and his mother are by his side."
The man hugged his daughter, whom he loved almost crazy, and tears flowed down his face.
"Thank you... Dad loves Illya the most. I swear, Dad loves you sincerely."
The movements of his hands were very smooth, and no matter what he was thinking, he put the muzzle of his most trusted magician's gun against his beloved daughter's little chin like a designed mechanical device.
"—Goodbye, Illya."
Before the young girl could figure out what was going on, her head exploded with a gunshot.
The piece of meat with silver hair on it splashed onto the man's tear-soaked cheek.
The wife wailed loudly.
Her eyes were wide open, her hair was disheveled, and she was screaming wildly in ecstasy.
"W-what did you do!?"
Kiritsugu pushed his wife, who rushed forward like a demon, down on him and strangled her slender neck with his hands.
"Holy Grail... You must not exist..."
Although he knew it was just a dream, and the person in front of him was not his real wife, and the one killed was not his real daughter, the man also knew that his real wife would cry in despair because of her daughter's murder, and would hate her husband for killing his own daughter. That kind of feeling was not false, and he could not forget the crime he had committed.
Looking directly at her, the man endured all these emotions while putting all his strength into his hands, tightly strangling his wife's neck.
"My dear, what are you doing... Why are you rejecting the Holy Grail and us... My Illya... Why are you doing this!?"
"—because I—"
The sound that came out of the man's throat was extremely empty, like the wind blowing through an empty gap. There was no sadness or anger.
He had abandoned the miracle he had been pursuing, and also abandoned the interests that were completely contrary to his original intention. At this moment, his heart was almost dry.
"I want to - save the world -"
All that is left of him is the ideals that have been carried out to this day. How empty this sentence sounds.
The woman in his wife's coat was solid, her snow-white face flushed with blood, her scarlet eyes that always looked at him with love and longing were now stained with curses and resentment.
"—I curse you—"
The originally nimble and gentle five fingers clasped the man's shoulders, and black mud flowed in from the five fingers that were deeply embedded in the flesh.
"Emiya Kiritsugu... I curse you... pain... regret until death... I will never forgive you..."
"OK."
The hateful mud covered the man's entire body, as if it was going to pollute both his body and soul.
Even so, the man still did not let go. He even forgot why the tears on his cheeks flowed, and he said while pinching the woman's neck tightly.
"It's alright. I said - I'll take it."
The woman's neck vertebrae broke in his shaking hands.
Again, the scene changes.
The familiar stone ground, the familiar environment, his "killed" wife and comrades were looking at him with concern.
"Are you okay?"
"Are you feeling unwell?"
A true wife releases healing and cleansing magic over and over again on herself, and the light scattering from her fingertips makes the man feel so warm.
Looking back, when I was being swallowed by the cursed black mud, there was always a ray of light protecting me, a faint light that contained hope.
At this moment, the man, Emiya Kiritsugu, understood that he had not lost everything. The person he loved and who loved him was always by his side.
The man shed tears again, this time they were tears of joy.
"I'm back, Airi, Maiya."
PS: The dream should be based on Kiritsugu's own memories. Even if Irisviel was swallowed by the Holy Grail, it is impossible for her to carry the memories of Emiya Norikata (Kiritsugu's father) and Natalie (Kiritsugu's adoptive mother). Therefore, this scene will happen regardless of whether Irisviel was swallowed or not.