My mother's love song

Emiya Kiritsugu's magic is time magic that maximizes single-player combat.

Limits time manipulation to the inherent boundaries of one's own subspecies.

If he used time manipulation to escape, even Assassin, who had excellent foot speed, would not be able to catch up with him.

However, Emiya Kiritsugu clearly heard footsteps coming from behind.

Someone is chasing me.

Getting closer and closer.

This is not terrible. If it is a great hero who is famous for his speed like the Greek Immortal or the Celtic Mastiff, even if Kiritsugu Emiya cheats, he will not be able to outrun him.

What really frightened Kiritsugu was that the pursuer approaching from behind had the same pace as him.

how can that be!

Could it be that the other party is also a triple speed time magician?

Hey, you guessed it right.

[Inherent Time Control] is undoubtedly a terrifying universal magic, but there are exceptions to everything.

There are some "lives" in this world that are not affected by time manipulation.

The resident of the garden, the connector of the root, the beast of original sin... and so on.

They possess the skill of [Solo Manifestation], and their existence itself is fixed. As long as the conditions are met, they can freely descend into any era in human history.

It transcends life, death, and time, and therefore has a high resistance to instant death and time manipulation.

When they meet someone who is good at manipulating time, they can synchronize their time with that of the other person.

Of course, these few monsters are usually rare.

That's how it should be.

While running, Kiritsugu was startled to feel a hand tightly grabbing his shoulder.

The hand stretched out from behind had an irresistible force, forcibly pinning Kiritsugu to the spot while he was running wildly.

Then, that hand straightened Kiritsugu’s shoulder, forcing him to turn around.

"!"

Although he had guessed this result, Emiya Kiritsugu still took a breath of cold air.

The person who caught up with Emiya Kiritsugu who activated triple speed from behind was none other than Caster's Master who he had killed half a minute ago.

The boy smiled slightly angrily.

"Hey, uncle. That shot just now really hurt."

Standing in the moonlight forest, he has a handsome face and a slender body.

However, in the distorted vision of Emiya Kiritsugu who activated the inherent time control, the beautiful boy with black hair and black eyes looked like a ghost.

"..."

Gritting his teeth, Kiritsugu chanted the spell again.

"Time alter Square accel!"

The inherent time control is four times the speed, which is the limit of his time manipulation magic.

The exploding pain boiled his consciousness, and Kiritsugu leaped back, escaping from Rhodes's grasp, and pulled out his favorite Thompson single-shot shotgun from his arms.

The shotgun roared, and the flames it emitted instantly engulfed the short boy in front of him.

The success at close range did not make Kiritsugu Emiya complacent. He did not dare to delay and maintained the four-fold acceleration to leap backwards, instantly creating a distance of more than ten meters.

In an instant, three questions arose in Kiritsugu's mind.

First, why is Rhodes still alive and kicking?

Secondly, how did he manage to move instantly to his ambush point, and what was the black shadow that appeared with him.

Thirdly, why the natural control had no effect on him, and how did he catch up with himself.

Faced with so many unanswered questions, Emiya Kiritsugu came up with an answer in his mind.

I was trapped by the law enforcement.

"...Tsk, did he deliberately induce me to snipe?"

Although he had narrowly escaped death countless times, Emiya Kiritsugu had never felt such great frustration and panic.

Continue to retreat and start reloading the single-shot shotgun.

Pull down the switch, open the gun, and insert the magic bullet

At this moment, a hand reached out from the darkness and tightly pressed down Kiritsugu's left hand as he was taking out the bullet.

This time, it only took Rhode a moment to reach Kiritsugu from ten meters away.

The speed is so fast that people have the illusion of teleportation.

Rhode, who caught Kiritsugu again, still did not launch a counterattack.

With a mocking expression, he placed his clenched right fist in front of Kiritsugu, then slowly opened his hand.

"!!!"

As Kiritsugu's vision swayed, a crushed bullet shell fell from Rhodes' palm.

The brass shining in the dark night tells the miracle of catching bullets with bare hands.

The battle-hardened killer let out a low, desperate voice: "...Impossible."

Indeed, it is impossible.

Whether it is the speed equivalent to space transfer or the operation of catching bullets at close range, they are all magical skills that surpass those of heroic spirits.

It is indeed not something that Rhodes' current body can do.

But he still accomplished it all.

This was made possible thanks to the contribution of Emiya Kiritsugu.

After he activated [Inherent Time Control - Four Times Speed], the flow of time around Rhodes also became one-fourth of the speed!

Unable to comprehend all this and unable to fight back, Emiya Kiritsugu's heart was filled with a deep sense of defeat.

Looking at the messenger of justice who was gradually losing his will to fight, a cunning gleam flashed in the beast's eyes.

“A tooth for a tooth, an eye for an eye.

Then, please experience the feeling of being shot in the chest by an anti-material rifle."

Rhode threw a lightning-fast punch, hitting Kiritsugu right in the chest.

boom!

Accompanied by a loud explosion-like sound, Emiya Kiritsugu roared in pain, and his body was knocked more than ten meters away by a punch.

This punch did not even take twenty days of effort, let alone twenty years of practice.

Without any martial arts training, Rhodes simply returned all the power of the rifle bullet he had just received to the opponent with his fists.

After a while, the forest returned to silence late at night.

All he saw were broken tree trunks and flying dust. Emiya Kiritsugu lay motionless in a pit with a diameter of more than two meters.

"Cough cough."

He coughed in pain and vomited blood.

Rod put his hands in his trouser pockets and hopped to Kiritsugu's side, humming an anime song.

If a human is shot with an anti-material rifle that is powerful enough to penetrate an armored vehicle, the upper body can be easily shattered.

But what if the same kinetic energy is concentrated in the fist?

Not only were his ribs broken, but his internal organs were also shattered by the lightning-fast punch.

Even so, he didn't die, because magicians are such tenacious animals.

Someone once said.

Women and children can make mistakes, but men cannot.

Emiya Kiritsugu now fully understood the meaning of these words.

The Magic Killer's first mistake became his last.

Everything was calculated from the beginning to the end, and he was teased by the other party throughout the whole process.

Emiya Kiritsugu's Holy Grail War ended just like that, cleanly and completely.

Rhode walked slowly to Kiritsugu's side, bent down, opened his coat and began to feel around.

"Let me look for it... ah, I found it."

The boy's eyes lit up and he took out a small box from the magician killer's arms.

Those were cigarettes produced in Taiwan, China, that Emiya Kiritsugu always carried with him.

"Would you like one too?"

Rod asked, cigarette between his fingers.

Emiya Kiritsugu kept a tense face and said nothing.

Oh, sorry, I forgot, there are still three ribs stuck in your lung.

"…Actually, this is my first time smoking. When I was hanging out in nightclubs, people often passed cigarettes around, but I never confiscated them."

Rhodes smiled and lit a cigarette with the confiscated lighter.

The moment he took a deep puff of smoke, he put on a mask of pain.

"Cough, cough, cough... Oh my god! What the hell is this?"

An indescribable sour feeling filled Rhodes' mouth, and it took him a while to get used to the smell.

Then, my mind became a little dizzy.

"Well, it's not bad."

Rhode blew out a puff of smoke, turned his head and looked down at Emiya Kiritsugu with his cold black pupils.

Even after such a devastating defeat, there was still an unyielding light in his eyes.

Kiritsugu's lips trembled, not because of fear, but because of nervousness.

For him, there is still a glimmer of hope.

No matter how miserable she was, as long as the other party didn't know "that secret", Irisviel still had the possibility of winning in the end.

However, Rhodes killed his last thought with just one sentence.

“Nice to meet you, Mr. Magician Killer, a minion of Einzbern.

No, I'm afraid this title doesn't suit you. After all, Emiya Kiritsugu, you are the true Master of Lancer."

"...!!!"

The calm words were like a bullet piercing the heart, taking away the last glimmer of hope in the man's heart.

Kiritsugu's eyes became empty, and he uttered a hoarse voice: "...Kill me."

Hearing this, Rhodes smiled a winner and shook his head.

"I'm sorry, that's not possible."

I don't want Irisviel to hate me for the rest of my life, and besides...

You still have surplus value to extract.

Rod threw away the burning cigarette butt, squatted down beside Kiritsugu, and searched the inner pocket of the magician killer's coat again.

"You should have brought it with you, right? ... [that thing]."

Not long after, Rhodes took out a roll of parchment from his arms and threw it on the ground.

That was the "Certificate of Self-Enforcement" that Emiya Kiritsugu always carried with him, which stated that one voluntarily gave up their Master status.

"...!!!"