maguskiller[Action; Private to Kayneth]
[Priorities change. Be it through trauma, or sheer old boredom, it is difficult to stick to one motivation your entire life. Eventually, your beliefs are defied in one way or another, forcing you to either adapt or die.]
[Kiritsugu has reached that point, and yet, has not reached that point. The core of his ideas remains the same. Protect. Save. But where once he saw every life as equally valuable, now he no longer strives to save any but those he cares about. Yet deep down, the same desire to be a hero of justice tears him up inside.]
[Yes. Kayneth's appearance inspires feelings in him he does not quite recognize. Regret has been a constant companion since the culmination of the Fourth War, but what currently plagues him is much more akin to shame, an emotion Kiritsugu has never felt before.]
[Yet Kiritsugu did not learn the ability to block out all emotions to reach his goals. He was born with it.]
[Other unnatural feelings well up in him. Bizarre emotions that can only be caused by another incident. He will not let it happen. He will stop the appearance of Shadows before another one emerges. But to do so, he must rid himself of interruptions.]
[It takes a few days for Kiritsugu to find a moment when Kayneth Archibald would be the only man in his floor, but he does not waste a single second of it. Inserting poison gas into the air vent was not too difficult a task. Not when the hotel was of average quality, and thus, possessing a security system easily infiltrated by him. Nothing fancy by any definition. If he could provide the second El-Melloi with a tranquilizer gun, he would have been remiss to not have gotten one himself. Guards are easier to take down than Shadows, and falling asleep on the job is not too rare an occurrence.]
[...Once again, he took precautions against unnecessary losses. It was one thing to do so when lives were at stake and the balance could be tipped too much, but nobody would have truly died here. Poisoning the entire floor for the afternoon was not negotiable, as directing his attack against nobody but Kayneth would have drawn much more suspicion, but to have waited until he was the only one there... it must have been simply to avoid too much publicity. Wouldn't do if this stirred up a frenzy.]
[He can't help but find the irony in smoking at a moment like this.]
[Public]
[Typical of his afternoons, Kiritsugu can be found at his job at a local restaurant. He's passing the time organizing the service, waiting for his break to come. He seems to have invited Shirou to talk during that time. Whatever news come up on any TVs go seemingly ignored by him.]
[He also seems to be averting eye contact with Saber. While Kiritsugu would typically ignore her, he would not actually display any signs of her presence influencing him. Something's wrong.]