Chapter 034 [Inverted V] 34

"...In short, Japanese magicians are good at inner barriers, not boundary barriers." Abe Haruaki looked at the crowd and sighed. "If you are looking for a magician who is good at boundary barriers in Heian-kyō, I think all the heroes in Heian-kyō* will provide you with candidates - but this is modern Japan."

"I don't think they can create a boundary barrier of this effect - because they don't know what price they have to pay to make this magic work." Abe Haruaki finally made a simple and rough judgment on Fujimaru Ritsuka's idea, "Unless there is a guy who has lived from a thousand years ago to the present and personally arranged it or personally instructed modern magicians every step -"

"Otherwise, there would definitely be no magician in Japan today who could build such a huge boundary barrier."

"I want to go check out the nearby buildings." Fujimaru Ritsuka stood up and looked at the new building that looked even more eerie under the brilliant lights. "It won't be far, but there's nothing I can do here..."

"Go ahead if you want to. When I found out that all the former Masters in Chaldea were that kind of people, I knew you would do the same." Abe Haruaki sighed helplessly and handed a talisman to Fujimaru Ritsuka, "Take this with you. If you encounter danger, burn it. The effective range is this intersection and nearby buildings."

"Anything beyond that is useless."

"What is this...?"

Fujimaru Ritsuka sized up the talisman in his hand, his gaze fixed on the bright red pattern in the center of the talisman that was similar to the Command Seal—it was composed of three strokes similar to the Command Seal, but it was not the pattern of any Command Seal that Fujimaru Ritsuka had seen in the records. Instead, it looked like the face of a fox.

"It's just a small prop I made." Abe Haruaki answered Fujimaru Ritsuka's question with a smile, "It's a reverse teleportation modified from the Holy Grail War's mandatory command spell system - in case the Master encounters an emergency that threatens his life. By the way, it will return to my side after activation, so the effective range is this intersection and the surrounding buildings."

"Please remember not to stray too far, Master."

After Fujimaru Ritsuka walked into the nearest building, Okita Souji finally succeeded in relaxing, took a long breath, switched his spirit base state to the initial state, and changed the sword he casually placed beside him from Kikuichimonji Norimune back to Kashuu Kiyomitsu, and then sat down on the side of the road.

"Did your clairvoyance really not find anything wrong?" Okita Souji turned his head and saw Abe Haruaki squatting beside him. He still couldn't help but ask the Onmyoji his doubts, "Or... the Onmyoji's intuition and the like were not triggered by this special point?"

"How can an Onmyoji have a skill like intuition? They are not like those guys in Britain." Although Abe Haruaki complained about Okita Souji's idea, he still answered her question seriously, "I'm kidding - if you mean the intuition related to the incident caused by the Phantasma..."

"I think the guy who caused this anomaly is not a non-human." Abe Haruaki looked up at the half moon in the sky, "The current state of the anomaly must have been caused by non-humans - but these are just speculations based on experience and intuition. Because other than that, I really didn't find anything."

Wei Gong regained his physical form in a hidden corner, looking at the people gathered at the edge of the special point outside, beating the air at the edge excitedly, as if there was a wall there - Wei Gong withdrew his gaze halfway through and began to organize the information he had collected from the crowd.

"Gojo Satoru..." Emiya leaned against the wall and subconsciously repeated the name he had heard the most in the crowd. "The most people in Shibuya during Halloween are tourists, and the only thing that can drive strangers to do the same thing is enough profit - 'Only if Gojo Satoru comes can we leave Shibuya'... Haha, it's a very obvious lie."

——Although almost no one here knew who Gojo Satoru was, they all did the same thing.

"No one promised that they could leave Shibuya as long as Gojo Satoru came. And they are still spreading the word that 'we can only leave Shibuya if Gojo Satoru comes'..." Emiya fell into deep thought, "Always thinking the best of things... No, even if they can't leave Shibuya, it won't have much impact, so why are they so anxious!? Is it the human instinct to survive?"

"That is to say, even if these people themselves did not realize that Shibuya was a threat to their lives, their subconscious sensed that death was approaching."

Emiya sighed regretfully, and was about to go back to find Fujimaru Ritsuka when the crowd of Shibuya he saw overlapped with another scene from his past memory.

"Killer House...Kiara!?"

There was a continuous sound of gunfire in his ears, and all the people who fell were innocent people - Wei Gong even saw in that memory the guardian who took care of him after his adoptive father passed away - however, none of the believers who gathered around that almost saintly woman were spared and survived the hail of bullets.

Emiya looked at the other self who had distorted his own beliefs and slaughtered all the innocent people around him to get the opportunity to kill Kiara. He remembered what his adoptive father said to him when he was sitting in front of the door on a full moon night in the past.

At that time, there was still a possibility that he would not go towards these two futures - however, as a Heroic Spirit, everything about the two Heroic Guard Palaces had been frozen in the Throne of Heroes.

Even in Chaldea, the entire Emiya family gathered together - although they were not relatives from the same world, they had similarities after all, so they always got along well with each other.

That night, his adoptive father suddenly mentioned his past dreams to him.

——When I was young, I dreamed of becoming a partner of justice.

——However, unfortunately, since heroes have a shelf life, I gave up.

——Because, after growing up, you are no longer a hero.

——I wish I had noticed this fact earlier.

At that time, the young boy said:

"Ah, there's nothing we can do about it."

"Yeah, there's really nothing we can do about it." After agreeing with him, the foster father looked at the full moon that seemed a little too bright in his memory and sighed helplessly, "What a beautiful moon."

What happened after that is something that all the Heroic Spirits except Emiya Alter will never forget. That is the origin of their dreams, the beginning of everything, and the most important reason that ultimately led the two Heroic Spirits to take different paths.

——Well, since there is no other choice, I will take over Dad’s role.

——Dad is an adult, so there is no chance for me to play the role, but I can still be one, right?

——So, leave Dad’s dream to me.

So, when Emiya saw his other self covered in the blood of innocent people, he just thought - ah, so this is why Dad said that heroes have a shelf life.

All the evil in this world that polluted the Holy Grail once provided a way to completely deny his adoptive father's dream and realize that wish. In the records of Chaldea, Wei Gong once saw the records of that Holy Grail War.

Among them, the default setting of the Holy Grail fulfilling the wishes of the adoptive father was also recorded - sacrificing a few people to save the majority; it became killing a few people to save the majority; and finally it became killing the majority and leaving the minority alive.

As a Guardian who became a Heroic Spirit, he knows more clearly that the Heroic Spirit Guardians are different from humans and ordinary Heroic Spirits. They are the guardians of the Restraint Force, and they were chosen by the Restraint Force not to save humanity, but only to protect human nature.

Although human principles can only continue based on the survival of mankind, killing people in order to protect human principles is permitted by restraining forces.

The people killed are not limited to those who threaten humanity - as long as the ultimate source of harm is eliminated, no matter how many people are killed in the process, it will not be within the scope of the restraint.

Emiya Alter, from the moment he distorted his original beliefs, completely turned into a cold-blooded executor - as long as it was for the sake of protecting humanity, killing as many people as possible would not make the two guns in that guy's hands tremble.

In a sense, Emiya Alter is the Emiya who is closer to an adoptive father.

——They are all people who will do whatever it takes to achieve their goals.

It’s just that Emiya Alter completely distorted the fundamental belief of his existence, and turned into a cruel executor; while his adoptive father, Emiya Kiritsugu, at least in the past, no matter how many people he killed, he still held on to the ideal of becoming a righteous partner, which was as naive as a daydream - this was the only difference between the two.

Then, Emiya looked at another version of himself, who walked across a sea of ​​blood and corpses to the woman who hadn't even turned into a Beast larva yet, and raised his gun.

Gunshots were heard - the dream about the memory ended there, and afterwards, thanks to the protection Merlin had added to Fujimaru Ritsuka's dream, it never appeared in Emiya's dream again.

"If it was Ritsuka, he would probably say this at this time - 'Think positively, at least there won't be any evil humans here.'" Emiya crossed his arms, leaned against the wall and smiled helplessly, "Indeed, Lord Haruaki didn't observe any abnormalities - this at least shows that there are no people in the anomaly that could turn into evil humans."

"Besides, the people surrounding Kiara in the Killing Institution are all followers of that woman - and the people in the Shibuya Anomaly are just ordinary tourists..." Emiya looked at the moon in the sky and exhaled slowly, "It looks like he is just a simple villain - using ordinary people as a shield for himself... Ha, this is really a method that only a despicable guy can come up with."

"Well, the information should be enough for Ritsuka to make a judgment on the current situation in Shibuya." Emiya was about to transform into a spirit and return to the intersection, but suddenly found that something unusual had happened around him, "There was a commotion in the crowd...? Wait, the color of the moon changed!?"

At the Shibuya Anomaly, the change that occurred at the same time as the commotion among the crowd was that the half moon hanging in the sky gradually turned into a blood-red full moon.

At the same time, the strong smell of blood, which only Okita Souji had smelled before, surrounded Emiya.