Thanks to Irisviel, I manage to escape from Kiritsugu.
Now I'm getting dragged away by her, though I can practically feel Kiritsugu glaring daggers into the back of my head as I'm being pulled down the hall.
Not gonna lie, Kiritsugu's actions actually make perfect sense to me.
From his perspective, I'm literally an eight-year-old kid who suddenly appeared in the middle of a mountain in the dead of night, only to get dragged inside their castle by Saber. So yeah, I totally understand why his first instinct was to point a gun at my head.
"You must be freezing, right? I'm going to prepare some warm water for you, so just wait right here, alright?"
Well, everyone makes sense except for this person.
For some reason, she brought me to this huge bedroom, made me sit down on the plush bed, and patted my head with a bright smile.
Then she vanished through a side door that I assume connects to an en-suite bathroom.
From that direction, I can hear the sound of running water while I look around the massive bedroom. "Alright... Day 2 of the Holy Grail War, and now I've been kidnapped by Saber," I sigh to myself.
Day 1 I got kidnapped by Gilgamesh, and now Day 2 is Saber.
I honestly curious who is going to kidnap me tomorrow.
Speaking of kidnapping, where is Gilgamesh anyway? I thought she was going to show up here after I tell her that something was going to happen on the mountain tonight.
My thoughts get interrupted when the bathroom door swings open and Irisviel reappears.
"The bath is ready! Now, let's go," she says, gently taking my hand. But the problem is exactly what she just said.
"Wait, what do you mean by 'let's go'?" I ask, needing to make absolutely sure I didn't just misunderstand her.
"To get ready for your bath, of course~" With a cheerful smile, she suddenly raises both of my arms up and casually strips me out of my entire outfit with such terrifying efficiency that I don't even realize my clothes are gone until I feel the cold air.
"Wait, wait, wait! Why are you removing my clothes?!" I screech, desperately trying to cover myself. "I can do it myself! And I can take a bath by myself too!"
"No, no, your small hands definitely can't reach your back properly! So I'm going to take a bath with you~" Irisviel says happily, completely ignoring my protests as she scoops me up and carries me straight into the bathroom.
"There we go, all nice and warm," Irisviel hums happily as she gently pours warm water over my shoulders, her fingers carefully working the shampoo into my hair.
I sit there submerged up to my chest in the huge, luxurious bathtub, my face completely red from embarrassment as my thirty-year-old adult pride slowly crumbles into dust.
Don't get me wrong, it's not like I'm not used to people helping me bathe.
Back at the orphanage, Aunty Nana and Ria helped me and the other younger kids take baths all the time.
I am incredibly grateful to them because they are genuinely kind people who always made sure we were clean, fed, and safe.
But taking care of a dozen energetic orphans at the same time is hard work, meaning bath time with Aunty Nana and Ria was always a race against the clock.
It was efficient, fast, and practical. It was the touch of busy caretakers making sure a kid was healthy.
This... this is completely different.
Irisviel's touch isn't just practical.
Her hands are incredibly warm and so gentle that it almost tickles.
She takes her time massaging my scalp, humming a soft, beautiful lullaby under her breath like I'm the most precious thing in the world.
It feels completely different from Aunty Nana's brisk scrubbing.
It feels like pure, concentrated motherly love.
My adult mind keeps screaming at me that this is embarrassing and I should wash myself.
But honestly, since the start of this stupid Holy Grail War, so much insane stuff has happened to me back-to-back that I haven't had a single moment to just breathe and relax.
Because of that absolute exhaustion, my eight-year-old body completely betrays me.
The sheer biological craving for safety and a mother's warmth utterly overrides my logic.
Before I even realize what I'm doing, my tense shoulders completely drop.
I let out a soft, embarrassing little sigh and unconsciously lean my head back into Irisviel's hands, letting my eyes flutter shut as all the tension from the last few days finally melts out of my small body.
"Are you sleepy, sweetie?" Irisviel giggles softly, her tone so overwhelmingly fond that it makes my chest feel tight.
"Mhmm..." I mumble back, way too relaxed to care about pointing that out right now, entirely giving up on trying to act like a tough adult.
---
---
---
The moment Irisviel disappeared down the hallway with the strange child, Kiritsugu's cold facade hardened even further.
Without a word, he turned on his heel and walked straight toward their designated strategy room, gesturing for Maiya and Saber to follow.
"I need an explanation about everything that just happened. Now," Kiritsugu demanded the exact second the heavy wooden door clicked shut behind them.
Standing in the center of the room, Saber let out a quiet, tired sigh.
From the very beginning of this war, she heavily disliked her own Master and his cowardly methods.
Forcing her to pretend that Irisviel was her actual Master just so Kiritsugu could hide in the shadows and play the assassin was a deeply dishonorable tactic.
More importantly, it put Irisviel in massive, unnecessary danger.
If it hadn't been for Rider unexpectedly interrupting her duel with Lancer on the first night, Irisviel could have easily been killed while Kiritsugu was definitely can't do anything against Lancer.
Tonight was supposed to be their rematch and yet again she had almost lost the fight if not for whatever bizarre phenomenon had caused both her and Lancer to suddenly lose consciousness.
Saber subtly tried to flex her left hand, but as usual, her fingers refused to move properly.
The cursed wound inflicted by Lancer was still firmly in place, severing her tendons and preventing her from gripping her Excalibur with both hands.
"After I arrived at the forest where Irisviel told me the Bounded Field had been broken..." Saber began, her tone formal and guarded.
She recounted the events precisely from the fierce duel with Lancer in the woods, the sudden and inexplicable blackout that neither of them could remember, and finally, being woken up by the little girl who called herself Reina.
"However, ever since I woke up, my body has felt incredibly strange," Saber continued, looking down at her black-suited hands, clenching and unclenching them.
"The prana flowing through me right now is abnormally dense, and my body feels far lighter than it should. Kiritsugu... I need you to check my parameters from our Master-Servant contract."
Kiritsugu narrowed his eyes, his expression completely unreadable, but he closed them anyway and focused his mind inward.
He tapped into the spiritual tether that connected his soul to the Servant of the Sword, bringing up the current status of her Saint Graph.
What he saw made his breath catch in his throat.
Strength: B ➔ A
Endurance: A ➔ A+
Agility: A ➔ A+
Mana: A ➔ EX
Luck: D ➔ A
Noble Phantasm: A++ ➔ A++ (Spammable)
Kiritsugu's eyes snapped open, his pupils slightly dilated in sheer, unrestrained disbelief.
'This is impossible' Kiritsugu thought, his mind frantically racing to make sense of the information.
As her Master, he knew exactly what Saber's limits were under his own magical energy supply.
Because of their terrible compatibility and his own ruthless nature, her Luck was supposed to be dangerously low, and her Strength capped at a standard B-Rank.
But right now? Her stats had suddenly skyrocketed to absolute peak condition.
Her Strength and Endurance were heavily enhanced.
Her Luck had completely overwritten his own bad karma, jumping all the way up to Rank A.
And most terrifying of all was her Mana parameter.
The sheer volume of foreign prana swirling inside her Spiritual Core had completely shattered normal limits.
For the time being, Saber was acting as an infinite battery.
Something had completely bypassed his Master contract to flood his Servant with an overwhelming amount of power, and he had absolutely no idea how or why.
"The little girl?" Kiritsugu murmured, his sharp mind immediately connecting the dots.
The sudden, impossible increase in her parameters lined up exactly with Saber's story about the child forcing her Od into them to restart their prana flow.
"That is what I assume," Saber said, her brow furrowing in doubt. "But for a child to manage to overcharge two Servants with that small body... it should be physically impossible. Her magic circuits would have fried instantly."
"If the little girl managed to do that herself, do you think she is an important piece to this war?" Maiya asked, looking over at Kiritsugu with completely cold, analytical eyes.
"Not just an important piece. That girl is the key for us to win this war," Kiritsugu stated flatly, his mind already calculating the tactical advantages.
"But it is not one hundred percent confirmed yet. We need to find a way to make her do that again, to see if the phenomenon can be controlled."
Saber's head snapped up, her eyes flashing with sudden, intense anger. "Are you serious right now, Kiritsugu? You want to use a child to fight in this war?!"
"Keep your voice down," Kiritsugu replied, not even blinking. "If her Od can grant a Servant increase in Parameters like that, she is the ultimate asset. The Holy Grail will save the entire world. Involving a single, anomalous child to guarantee that victory is a microscopic price to pay. It is simple mathematics."
"It is an atrocity!" Saber shouted, taking a step toward him, her knightly pride completely rejecting his twisted logic.
"This is a war between Servant and Magus! Dragging an innocent child into this bloodshed to act as your personal battery goes against everything I stand for! I will not allow you to exploit her, Kiritsugu. I will go to Irisviel right now and tell her to take Reina somewhere safe, far away from you!"
Disgusted by her Master's sheer lack of humanity, Saber turned on her heel and started marching toward the heavy wooden door to leave.
"Stop right there," Kiritsugu commanded, his voice cutting through the room like a blade. "You said she woke up Lancer exactly the same way she woke you."
Saber paused, her hand hovering just inches from the doorknob. She glared at him over her shoulder. "She did. What of it?"
"I shot Lord El-Melloi tonight," Kiritsugu stated coldly, leaning forward over the table. "His magic circuits are completely destroyed. He is crippled."
Saber frowned, turning slightly. "If his Master's circuits are destroyed, then Lancer's parameters should be plummeting. He should barely be able to maintain his physical form."
"Exactly," Kiritsugu said, his eyes narrowing. "They should be. But because of what that child did, Lancer's Saint Graph is currently overflowing with foreign, high-tier prana. The moment El-Melloi regains consciousness and checks his Servant's status, he is going to see parameters that have skyrocketed instead of dropping to the bottom."
Saber's eyes widened slightly as the grim reality of the situation finally clicked in her mind.
"He will interrogate Lancer," Kiritsugu continued mercilessly. "And since Lancer is his knight, he will not lie. He will tell his Master exactly what happened in that forest. What do you think a crippled, desperate Lord of the Clock Tower will do when he learns there is a Masterless child wandering around who can act as an infinite mana battery?"
Saber slowly lowered her hand from the door, her jaw clenching tight.
"He will hunt her down," Maiya answered quietly from the corner of the room, her voice devoid of emotion.
"El-Melloi has lost his own magic, which means he needs a replacement. He will capture her, experiment on her, and force her to supply Lancer. And if she breaks, he will just dispose of her."
Kiritsugu stared directly into Saber's eyes, flawlessly using her own protective nature to trap her. "If you walk out that door and send that child away, you are not saving her, Saber. You are handing her directly to a desperate magus to be used as livestock. The absolute safest place for her in all of Fuyuki City is right here, behind our Bounded Fields, under your protection."
Kiritsugu let the heavy silence hang in the air for a moment before finishing his point. "So, are you going to throw her to the wolves out of your own misplaced pride, or are you going to be reasonable and let her stay?"
Saber stood in rigid silence for a few long moments, the weight of the situation pressing down on her.
As much as she completely despised Kiritsugu's ruthless nature, she couldn't deny the cold, hard logic in his words.
They had no idea where this little girl came from or if she even had a family in Fuyuki.
Sending her back out into a war zone alone would make her a prime target for every single Master in the city.
The Einzbern bounded fields truly were the only place that could guarantee her safety.
"Fine," Saber finally spat, her emerald eyes burning into Kiritsugu with absolute defiance. "But she is only staying here for her own protection. She is not to become your soldier, Kiritsugu. If you try to use her as a tool for this war, I will not forgive you."
Gritting her teeth, Saber turned on her heel and marched out of the room, slamming the heavy wooden door shut behind her.
The loud crack of the door frame echoed sharply through the cold walls.
With Saber gone, only Kiritsugu and Maiya remained in the dimly lit strategy room. For a long time, neither of them said a single word.
Kiritsugu finally let out a slow, heavy sigh. He slowly raised his right arm, his dark, tired eyes staring intently at the crimson strokes of the Command Spells carved into the back of his hand.
If Saber's parameters had spiked that drastically, he could already visualize the terrifying threat Lancer now posed.
Even with a crippled Master whose magic circuits were destroyed, Lancer's Saint Graph was undoubtedly overflowing with that exact same power.
[Lancer's Parameters: Current State]
Strength: B ➔ A
Endurance: C ➔ B
Agility: A+ ➔ A++
Mana: D ➔ EX
Luck: E ➔ E ~ D
Noble Phantasm: B ➔ B+