Atop the highest building in Misaki City, there was a closed-off, dimly lit space.
The room was expansive, yet devoid of any furniture or decoration—utterly empty.
In its very center stood a large, garden-style diorama, meticulously crafted from toy blocks and scale models.
Anyone familiar with Misaki City would be astonished upon seeing this diorama, for it was a perfect, real-time replica of the entire city itself.
Rather than merely being a static model, this diorama accurately mirrored everything currently happening within Misaki City in real-time—a tool that would be terrifyingly effective on a battlefield.
Aside from this central diorama, the spacious room housed something else that would send chills down one's spine:
Dolls.
Large and small, dressed in various clothes, some ragged and some pristine, all with round, staring eyes. Countless dolls lined the walls, encircling the space entirely.
The garden-like diorama at the room's center emitted a faint, eerie blue glow, illuminating the dolls' faces, filling the entire chamber with an unsettling and grotesque aura.
An ordinary person entering here would probably drop dead from fright, never to rise again.
Yet from within this unsettling place echoed a voice—elegant, yet undeniably sinister.
"Ah, my beloved Marianne, have you decided where you'd like to go hunting humans today?"
Accompanying this voice, a tall, dignified man slowly materialized before the diorama.
He wore a pristine white suit, a long white scarf floating gracefully around him. With refined features, he looked every inch the noble gentleman from high society.
Yet, peculiarly, this man floated in mid-air, drifting gently with his flowing scarf toward the model city.
Lowering his gaze, the man's eyes softened with tender affection as he looked at a doll hovering gently before the diorama—his expression filled with adoration, as though this doll were his cherished lover.
In return, the doll shyly snuggled against his chest, rubbing against him happily.
"Master."
Though the doll's lips didn't move, an ethereal voice echoed from within it—a voice so pure and delicate that one would imagine it belonged to a beautiful maiden.
"What is it, my dear Marianne?"
The man caressed the doll tenderly.
"I've discovered a rather intriguing human."
The doll drifted away from the man's embrace, floating back above the diorama and pointing toward one particular spot.
Following Marianne's direction, the man focused on a tiny, red-haired figure in the miniature city, one constantly interacting with other flame-imbued figures.
Seeing this, the man's elegant brows furrowed slightly.
"How can a mere human perceive Torches?"
"Torches"—that was the term for those faint-presence beings Shirou Emiya had encountered earlier, substitutes for people who no longer existed in the world.
In other words, those individuals had already died.
Their [Power of Existence], the very foundation of their worldly presence, had long ago been drained by beings like this man. Once that happened, the victims perished completely, unable ever to return.
Yet if someone suddenly vanished from reality, it would cause distortions. Thus, to prevent such chaos, these beings left behind Torches as substitutes. But inevitably, even these Torches would fade from memory entirely.
"Isn't it interesting, Master? A human who can continuously notice these fading Torches?"
It wasn't particularly rare for humans to notice Torches. Torches, after all, still possessed traces of the [Power of Existence], making them observable and interactive to a certain extent.
People interacted with them but would quickly forget afterward. Anyone with slightly sharper perception could occasionally detect their presence—this wasn't odd in itself.
Yet something else was exceedingly unusual.
The man's previously furrowed brows gradually relaxed, replaced by an expression of enthralled curiosity. Gently stroking Marianne again, he murmured softly in reply:
"This human clearly forgets the Torches he encounters, yet he continues interacting with them frequently. Moreover, he bears no signs of being influenced by any [Unrestricted Spell] from a Flame Haze. That's truly fascinating."
To him, ordinary humans ranked lower than insects. Countless Flame Hazes had already perished by his hand; in his eyes, even Flame Hazes were mere ants—let alone the humans who existed solely to provide him with the [Power of Existence].
Humans couldn't even move within a [Fūzetsu]—a sealing barrier.
Though mildly intrigued by Shirou Emiya's peculiar interactions with Torches, he viewed it as merely a minor curiosity.
Coincidentally, at this moment, he did need to hunt more humans to replenish the city's supply of Torches.
Since such an amusing human had appeared, he decided to dispatch some of the Rinne he'd created to that human's location.
Not as a deliberate assault on Shirou himself; this was merely a casual whim.
These Rinne would not specifically prioritize Shirou Emiya. Instead, their main goal would be hunting nearby humans. Shirou's survival would depend purely on his own luck.
After all, massacring too many humans at once would quickly draw the attention of Flame Hazes. Although he didn't particularly fear them, unnecessary trouble was best avoided to further his greater plan.
---
The armor Shirou wore, [Incursio], was originally forged from the monstrous, dragon-like Danger Beast called Tyrant. [Incursio] boasted immense defensive strength, capable of evolving continuously by adapting to its wearer's body. However, its burden was extreme—ordinary humans would die simply by donning it.
But Shirou's [Incursio] was merely a projection. While the real armor contained Tyrant's consciousness—alive and able to adapt—this projected version had no such consciousness, offering no adaptive evolution.
It was merely an incredibly sturdy suit of armor, providing exceptional defense and augmented strength. Even so, this defense alone had enabled Shirou to survive multiple deaths in the previous parallel world, and had been crucial in defeating Atalanta.
Even after being repeatedly destroyed in that earlier world, Shirou still trusted [Incursio] deeply.
Yet now, frozen within this crimson-stained space where all things stood suspended, how many attacks could even this armor withstand?