The night was a curtain of frost and silence—broken only by the rhythmic crunch of EMIYA's boots on snow-covered concrete.
And the thing walking toward him.
The creature shimmered in the dark. Its body was striped in black and white, like something primal had crawled from the bones of the world and decided to play predator. It didn't speak. It didn't posture. It just moved.
No wasted effort. No hesitation.
EMIYA stopped in the center of a ruined street, cracked pavement stretching between two half-collapsed buildings. His breath came out in a slow, pale stream. The cold had no bite as he reached behind him, hand closing around air—
"Trace… On."
Twin blades shimmered into being—Kanshou and Bakuya, the married swords, familiar and balanced. He slid into stance.
The creature watched. Silent. Curious, maybe. Or just patient.
EMIYA darted forward, fast but not too fast. A test.
She moved to meet him. However, when he slashed the blades hit nothing. They passed through her like mist over steel. No resistance. No friction. No impact.
EMIYA landed, skidding back a few meters, eyes narrowing. "Intangibility?"
The creature tilted her head as he tried again. Faster this time. Changed angles. Mixed timing.
Nothing landed, every strike phased.
She swiped at him once—casual, almost bored—and the force behind it carved a gouge into the asphalt, like a steel beam had been dragged through it.
That wasn't for show.
He leapt back, flipped once midair, and landed atop a shattered bus.
"Alright," he murmured, watching her advance slowly. "This isn't a fight I can win through brute force."
He traced a pair of projectiles this time—shimmering spears of hardened mana, simple constructs. He hurled them at her, but they passed through.
He clicked his tongue.
"She's not just intangible. She's selectively intangible. Or invulnerable. Some kind of field? Conceptual armor?"
She leaped and crashed through the bus like it was tinfoil when he dodged.
EMIYA hit the ground rolling, barely avoiding a swipe that shattered a nearby lamppost and sent the metal spiraling into the sky.
She was fast. Too fast for her size. And deliberate. She was not berserking, but calculating.
He landed behind a car, took one breath.
"Alright," he exhaled. "I've seen enough."
She charged again. And again, his blades phased through her like she wasn't there. No friction. No blood. No weakness.
But EMIYA wasn't done testing. He dropped Kanshou and Bakuya mid-dodge, reaching into his mental arsenal. Something different. Something that didn't deal with the body, but the essence.
"Trace… On."
The sword that formed was alien to this world. Its edge shimmered not with steel, but with something deeper—shaped thought, sharpened intent. A conceptual blade designed to wound the metaphysical.
He slashed and she flinched. It wasn't pain. It wasn't even damage. But something in the way her posture shifted—how her form flickered ever so slightly—told him she'd felt something.
Not immunity. Not quite.
There was a thread. A weakness.
He stepped forward, pressing the angle.
And then—
There was screech. It echoed through the town like a siren, high-pitched and layered with pain and distortion. A mechanical scream. No words—just a beacon of chaos. It came from the direction of the shelter.
His grip faltered just for a moment.
The Siberian moved fast. Her claws swept toward his side, so fast even his honed reflexes barely registered it in time. He twisted, gritted his teeth as the edge of her claw carved through the fabric of his coat and grazed his arm with it.
Blood sprayed across the snow.
He landed hard from the innertia, skidding backward. The sleeve of his coat was gone. The skin underneath burned and split—but he was okay.
No more playing, then.
His mind went cold.
"Trace… On."
A Black Key formed in his hand—long, sleek, and consecrated. Not for killing bodies. For pinning souls. nHe twisted his wrist and hurled it—not at her, but at the ground beneath her.
The moonlight above was thin, fractured by the drifting clouds. But it was enough as the Black Key struck her shadow. And held.
The creature froze mid-motion, limbs jerking slightly as though tethered. Not full paralysis, but it gave her pause—resistance, at last and EMIYA didn't waste it. He dashed in, bringing the metaphysical blade down in a wide arc, aiming not for the body but the essence that puppeteered it.
The strike landed—and this time, she recoiled. Her form flickered violently, but the clouds were moving. The moonlight was waning. He could already feel the grip on her shadow weakening.
This wouldn't last.
And worse—he didn't know what was happening to Isshiki. That scream—
He glanced to the west.
He had to make this fast.
However, before he could move to finish her, he sensed it.
A presence. Small. Wrong.
It wasn't killing intent—no, that was too crude for this. It was the absence of fear. The silence between a scalpel's first touch and the moment flesh gives way.
He turned slowly.
And saw a boy.
No older than thirteen, pale and dressed in a nondescript winter coat. His hair was slate-gray, his eyes dull. He stood barefoot in the snow, unshivering, expression unreadable.
He tilted his head as he looked at the creature. Then at EMIYA.
"She's not supposed to stop," the boy said softly. Not with fear or alarm. With curiosity. As if watching a toy malfunction.
EMIYA's eyes narrowed. He didn't know who this child was. But the instinct that flared in his chest was older than logic. Older than life.
Wrong. Dangerous. Not human.
The boy took a step closer. "You pinned her. But it won't work forever." His tone was calm. Emotionless. "You should run now. Before she moves again."
EMIYA didn't speak. Not yet. His eyes flicked to the faint shimmer of the Siberian's outline—still distorted by his conceptual strike, but already stabilizing.
He had maybe ten seconds.
"You're not scared," EMIYA said evenly.
The boy shrugged. "I don't feel scared. I don't feel much of anything anymore."
The answer was too calm. Too clinical. And then EMIYA understood—not from deduction, but from pattern. The aura. The words. The eerie familiarity.
The Gray Boy.
A name he had skimmed past briefly in the Company's data. One of the worst. A child who trapped people in infinite loops of time and pain. Who played with souls like puzzle pieces.
His grip on the blade tightened. But there wasn't time. Not for this.
Not now.
He stepped back—not in retreat, but in prioritization.
"Stay out of my way," EMIYA said.
The boy blinked slowly. "I wasn't in it. I just wanted to see what you'd do."
EMIYA didn't answer. He turned, fluid and fast, and leapt onto the roof of a nearby ruin. Snow scattered under his boots as he ran, blades shimmering and vanishing mid-stride.
He didn't look back.
He didn't need to because as he vanished into the dark, he could feel the Gray Boy watching. Not with malice. Not with hate.
But with interest, like a child trying to understand the rules of a new game.
Luckily he left when he did because the grip on the creature's shadow broke. Not that he gave it much thought as he ran through ruined alleys, past scorched streets. When the shelter came into view, he didn't see monsters.
He saw her. A girl. Eight, maybe nine years old. Blonde curls. Wide, empty eyes, similar to the Gray Boy's but without the malice he could feel from the boy. There was a grin too big for her face that looked more from practice than for real pleasure. Her coat was pink. Her shoes were covered in blood.
And in her arms?
Weapons.
Claws. Scalpels. Whirring needles. Surgical gear twisted into cruel playthings. She was approaching the shelter, watching the shadows inside with rapt fascination, like a child peering into a dollhouse.
Bonesaw.
He didn't hesitate or give her time to turn. He merely struck her at the base of the neck with the hilt of his blade—not too hard, not lethal, but enough.
She dropped like a ragdoll and he caught her before she hit the ground, slinging her unconscious body under one arm. Her tools clicked and jittered in protest. Then he climbed down into the shelter.
The air hit him like a wall—metal, blood, burned plastic. The smell of survival.
Everywhere he looked, there was wreckage. Half-scrapped creations. Crushed cybernetics. Makeshift barricades stained with black oil and red blood.
And in the center—Isshiki.
Bruised. Exhausted. Kneeling beside Ralts, coaxing her to sip warm water with shaking hands. He looked like hell—like he'd given everything and still wanted to give more.
He looked up as EMIYA approached, relief bloomed across his face, tempered by weariness.
"You're back," he breathed, rising slowly to his feet.
Then his eyes dropped to the small form under EMIYA's arm. "…Is she?"
"Yes," EMIYA said flatly. "She's Bonesaw."
The name rippled through the shelter like a cold wind.
Murmurs. Gasps. A couple of injured survivors tensed, some pale, others reaching instinctively for makeshift weapons. But Isshiki just stared. His eyes locked onto her face—soft, round, slack in sleep.
And Isshiki whispered, voice raw, "She's so young."
EMIYA glanced down at the girl then back at Isshiki.
"Yes," he said quietly. "She is."
He laid the girl down gently. It was disturbingly easy. She was light, like she'd never eaten enough to grow properly. Her expression remained eerily peaceful, like someone who'd just been tucked into bed.
But her tools—those he wasn't gentle with. He disarmed her with practiced efficiency. Blade after blade, needle after needle. Things no child should ever carry, let alone wield. Retractable scalpels, chemical injectors, a finger-mounted bone saw, and something that looked like a modified taser sewn into her palm.
By the time he was done, the ground beside her looked like the inside of a psychopath's toolbox.
Isshiki watched in silence, bandaging the cut across his own arm. Ralts sat in his lap, head resting against his chest, eyes half-lidded with exhaustion.
EMIYA stood and turned to him.
"I'm going to look for more survivors. Not more of the Nine," he added, catching Isshiki's eyes. "You and Ralts are in no condition for another fight."
Isshiki looked down at Ralts. She stirred softly, her tiny arms wrapped around his sleeve like a child clinging to a parent.
"…You're right," he said finally. "Helping is more important than chasing a fight."
EMIYA nodded. "Rest. Recover. If I don't return soon, check for any police or PRT updates through the tablet."
Isshiki gave a tired thumbs-up, already reaching for the satchel.
EMIYA turned, preparing to vault back out of the shelter, but he heard the whirring and froze. His hand went to the hilt of a traced blade on instinct as he concentrated on the faint sound of rotors. Mechanical. Precise.
He raised his head.
A drone hovered into view just beyond the lip of the trench. Sleek. White. Marked with an insignia he didn't recognize, but the design was too clean, too modern, too advanced to belong to the local authorities.
EMIYA's stance shifted immediately. Every line of his body coiled with tension.
Isshiki looked up at him, confused—then followed his gaze.
His eyes widened—then relaxed as he straightened up and called softly: "...Dragon?"
The drone paused mid-air. Then its forward lens adjusted and focused on them.
It pinged once and then a warm, synthetic voice echoed from its speaker. "Affirmative, Dragon speakin. I'm here to inform you that the PRT officers will be here soon."
A wave of relief went through everyone.