Work Text:
10.3 :tears
Capturing the homunculus was a conduit for Kirei Kotomine in which he no longer must conceal how callous he could be. The clergyman considered the events of tonight as a comprehensive turning point in which he was, at last, his most candid self. For too long he had capitulated his vile compulsions to the claustrophobic cords of his faith, but the attempt was a chicanery, for Kirei was always a wicked, conniving man who had clinically circumvented this singular truth since he’d been christened Catholic. The war, however, was a cataclysm. He could no longer abide with a camouflage that only left him coldrife; to concede to a dogma which became cumbersome, especially since the cloying cancer in his heart coveted calamity.
Kirei kept his eyes on the choleric homunculus confined within the circle. In the past three hours, he had coerced her complacency using accoutrements of a clandestine religious ritual, choreographing pain that will break the mind and not just the body. But she was a cipher like Claudia, Kirei’s charitable wife, who never condoned how contemptible he was, which consequently cost her life.
This homunculus had a name she did not care to convey; a conscious choice to create distance between herself and her captor. The priest concurred; she was just collateral to him after all, though he was very interested about a certain man in her coterie named Kiritsugu Emiya. You are nothing alike, she chided, so cocksure and caustic. He has character, a kindness that compels him to save the world from itself. That’s why he wanted the Grail—to rid humanity of conflict.
A congenial smile crossed Kirei’s lips, concealing chagrin. As cliché at it is, he’s still a Christian, and Kiritsugu Emiya’s wishy-washy ideals made his insides curdle. Conflict is what makes us human, he countered. I did not take your husband to be a condescending chump; to be so quick in his captious conclusions about human nature that he’d cast stones like he would bullets. But listen well, for his callow principles are hardly honorable. To rid humanity of conflict is to catacomb its soul. He’s misconstrued human nature to be culpable when it’s meant to confound even then most cognizant cynic. Good and evil must co-exist. Kiritsugu Emiya cannot circumscribe everyone’s choices that contain both.
He stepped inside the circle and caught the homunculus by the throat. Claudia flashed before him as he throttled the churlish cunt, for the cinders of her memory were a constant conflagration in his coal-black heart. Clawing at his wrists, the homunculus choked as he clogged her airway until she cracked. Kirei was not contrite as she cascaded from his grasp like a crumpled centerpiece.
Canonized Claudia, if only I had carved the heart out of you…
Crooning, he cuddled the cadaver closer.
It was a cathartic kill for the cleric as he clamped his hands around his mouth to cease the cries that crowd his mouth like cavities. He was still a man of Christ and so must calmly collect his last vestiges of control. The cauterized chunks of his soul that night coiled into chains. They clattered behind Kirei as he carried himself out of the church basement. Under the curtain of composure, he cradled the crucifix upon his cassock which concealed Cain-colored chaos.