Flag?

To Ryan, it might feel like an instance of time; just like the time one needed to blink. After the intense exhaustion previously, Ryan could feel that he was rather rejuvenated now. As such, Ryan opened his eyes again, though what greeted him in his sight was far from pretty.

It was hell.

Burning land, destroyed houses and surrounding areas, burnt corpses littered everywhere as far as his eyes could see. If there was an apt description about hell, then what was within his sight could be called as such.

Ryan could feel the fierce scalding heat on his skin, his throat felt parched and hurt. Whenever he breathed, smog and debris would also fill his lung along with dry, burning air.

'Am I alive or dead? Is this hell??'

Ryan woke up in confusion. Fires were fiercely burning around the area, but only his place had small fire spread to it. Also, it looked like there was once something which prevented those fires to reach his place by looking at the circular mark on the ground. Moreover, he could feel an odd sensation as he saw the devastation in front of him; that this current scene felt strangely familiar to him.

'Is it just me, or, is it that those building look bigger than I thought?'

Ryan tried to get up, but although he felt that he had already stood up, his height felt way shorter than he remembered. When he looked at his hand, he was spooked as he realized those also were smaller than he imagined. It looked like the hands of a kid!

Ryan immediately checked lil' Ryan, to see if it became smaller. Though, contrary to his hope, it did became smaller too...

By that time, some foreign yet also strangely familiar memories surged into Ryan's mind. He felt like a spectator watching a life-long movie as he looked through those memories.

'I see, is this the fabled rebirth often spoken in those novels?!' Ryan felt incredulous, while also feeling sorry to the kid as he realized that his guess was likely to be true.

From what Ryan summarized, he was currently inhabiting the body of a boy who went by the name Ryan Kazami. The boy was an eight-years-old kid born in Fuyuki City, Japan.

When the disaster happened, the boy was still happily playing catch-ball with his dear father while his mother was cooking their dinner in the kitchen. That devastating disaster happened all of sudden, robbing the child's happy life and his parents from him. Although his parents tried their best to protect their child, the boy still lost his life due to lack of oxygen.

When the boy had died for few minutes, it was at that time that Ryan's soul entered the kid's body, thus granting Ryan another chance at life.

'Fuyuki City, Japan. Great Fire. It has to be that world, eh. This is quite exciting indeed.' Ryan smiled. He was somewhat hopeful now for the future events.

'Still, this situation doesn't look that good to me now.'

There were fires as far as his eyes could see. His breathing was getting rougher and harsher with each minutes passed, his limbs felt heavy, his eyes were also hurt by the smog all around the place.

According to his memory, there would be high chance the rescue team would only arrive few hours later as the great fire encompassed wide area. With a small city like Fuyuki City, he wouldn't be surprised if the city was lacking in personnel of firemen. Ryan wouldn't depend on their help coming soon.

The other way would be him trying to walk away from the fire himself. But with his child body it might also be an uphill task. If not, Ryan could also try to find the original MC as there would be definitely someone who saved him, then Ryan could tag along with that remorseful magus-killer…

'…damn, I feel like mooching off the MC though if I do that.

'But whatever, won't I be wasting this precious chance if I were to die here?' Ryan smiled. He was laughing out loud as his eyes burned with brighter spirit.

Bring it on! I won't fall here!

Wait, is this considered a flag?? Nah, there's no way it is, right? It's too lame to be a flag. 

Shaking his head lightly, Ryan had decided to find a way out himself. It might be good if he could find the original MC along the way, as his survival would be likely guaranteed by mooching off the original MC's luck. If he could not find the original MC, then the least he could do to survive was finding a way out of the fire's range. Thus, Ryan threaded his steps carefully. He avoided areas with large concentration of fire and chose the route with lesser fire.

~some time later~

Half an hour. It was probably the time Ryan had spent finding the ways outside. But after all that time, he had yet to go outside the fire range, nor had he found the original MC.

During that time, he often encountered broken buildings which collapsed suddenly, scraped electricity lines which was still bursting out electricity occasionally, as well as numerous victims of the disaster. Even walking had been an arduous task for him as he had to avoid being injured more than he had been.

He passed numerous burnt corpses along the way. Seeing those dead bodies, his heart unexpectedly became more serene. His feeling was clear, and his mind was calm. To him, Death was merely a natural occurrence, it was not something to be feared nor excessively avoided; it was just another stage of life.

"Agh..!"

Ryan felt his eyes were aching badly. Although he already felt slight pain on his eyes when he woke up earlier, he thought it was merely because of the smog. But during this journey it was getting more and more unbearable despite he had chosen a relatively safe route with lesser fire and smog.

His eyes became hotter as time passed. It felt like there was a flame inside his eyes. That flame was quiet at first, but then it slowly grew stronger, until he even felt like the fire disaster on the area was lukewarm compared to the flame inside his eyes.

His vision worsened, his legs felt painful to walk as they were already quite scalded by the burning land all the way, and it was already getting hard for him to breath.

'...am I destined to die here?'

Ryan had such thought as he tried to keep walking. His spirit had not waver, but at that moment his body couldn't keep up with his will.

Despite he urged his body to move forward, the exhaustion still hit him in the end. Ryan fell on the ground after his feet stumbled on to something.

He didn't know what tripped him, but it disappeared the moment he looked down at it. In return, he felt another source of heat appeared on his abdomen.

The heat in his eyes seemed to notice there was an intruder to his domain. There was a fierce clash between the two forces as they created havoc inside Ryan's body.

That... was the final straw that finally put Ryan down. He fell, and laid weakly on the ground, waiting for death, as there was no more energy to keep moving.

'Damn, this is ridiculous. I knew it, I should not have planted that death flag before...'

That was the last thought Ryan had before he fainted, laying weakly on the ground.

. . .

Some place a few tens of meters away from Ryan's place.

A man was carrying an unconscious boy around Ryan's age on his back. He was dashing toward outside the fire's range when he felt sudden spikes of mana fluctuation nearby him.

"....."

Emiya Kiritsugu stopped in his track. He looked toward the direction of that fluctuation. His sight pierced through the smog as he located another fainted kid around the age of the boy on his back.

"It's an Awakening." Kiritsugu muttered. He could see that the kid was still alive although he had fainted.

At this current era, it was quite rare for normal human to develop the aptitude to be a magus. It was rare, but not impossible because it could still happen on some occasion; though those who could awaken their aptitude usually have ancestor who were also magus themselves.

Although their bloodline might be diluted, but with a proper catalyst and enough providence, even normal human could also awaken their aptitude for becoming a magus. In the kid's case, it was probably the life-and-death situation the kid experienced which likely became his catalyst.

Thus far, the survivor Emiya Kiritsugu could find was only the boy on his back who was barely hanging on the thread. Now that he found another survivor, Kiritsugu didn't think much before he dashed in the kid's direction.

'Our distance is not far. I can still rush out of the fire after taking that kid too.'

Currently, Kiritsugu's heart was filled with endless remorse and guilt after the fact that he was partly the cause of this dreadful disaster.

He had once thought that to reach his end goal, he could do any means necessary to ensure his success; as it would mean the 'perfect' reality he wished for would also be realized. He would gladly take any blame, curses, grudges and insults to reach his ultimate goal.

However, in the end, he realized how meaningless his path had been. At the end of his pursuit, he finally found that even the so-called miracle – the Holy Grail – could not realize his wish the way he wanted it to be...

He – who had already forsaken his heart, relationships, and his family to pursue his ideal justice – once again tried to gather them back as best as he could, no matter how futile it might be.

Kiritsugu knew that trying to save the survivors would not reduce his sin nor would it lessen his punishment. But, even so,… he still hoped to save more people...

Meanwhile, at the moment Ryan went unconscious, Ryan felt like he had seemingly arrived in front of a mysterious gate at unknown place. There were two statues guarding the gate at each side; a majestic dragon and a crowned winged demon.

The moment Ryan stared at the gate and two statues, a holographic panel appeared in front of him. It showed a game-like status which listed something likely to be his current attributes.

[Name]: Ryan Kazami

[Strength]: F+

[Vitality]: F-

[Dexterity]: F+

[Spirit]: D-

[Luck]: C-

[Arcane Art]: Frost Dragon King (level 0), Demon King of Domination (level 0)

[Innate]: Heavenly Eye (D)

[Essence Point]: 0.03

"What the..."

When Ryan tried to touch that game-like panel, it just dawned on him that his hand was merely an illusory hand. It looked bigger, similar to his previous adult built, unlike the kid's hand he had grown accustomed to recently. He then checked his body, and he understood that his entire body was an illusory state of his previous body.

His attention then returned to the game-like panel in front of him. According to what Ryan knew of modern's game, he could somewhat understand the [Strength], [Vitality], [Dexterity], and [Luck] stats.

[Strength] should be corresponding to the amount of physical force he could unleash at once.

[Vitality] should be corresponding with his life force, perhaps it would also relate to his defense mechanism.

[Dexterity] would probably correspond to his burst speed, running speed, and control of his body.

[Luck] didn't really need to be mentioned. It's the crucial element for each main character after all.

Ryan turned slightly narcissist at the end. He was grinning from ear to ear like an idiot for once.

Cough, cough.

Anyway, although he had yet to test his assumption, he still held them true for now.

What puzzled him was the [Spirit] stats, did it quantify his soul or it's a quantity of his other capacity? He had a guess it may be a stat related to his mana capacity, but he was not sure yet.

Though, looking at his stats, Ryan couldn't help feeling dejected at how low his current stats were.

After washing down his dejection, Ryan turned his sight to the statues guarding the gate. On its right side was the statue of majestic dragon, while on its left side was the statue of crowned winged demon.

Ryan recognized the left statue as it had left deep impression on him; because that statue was incarnation of the Arcane Seed which had eventually caused Ryan to meet his death before.

When Ryan focused on the winged demon statue, Ryan realized that a profound understanding had gradually emerged inside his mind. The insight seemed to show the way of cultivation of Demon King Solomon's Arcane Art.

Refine one's Soul,

Enshrine one's Altar,

Consecrate one's own Demon,

Deity or Demon, what's even their difference...

Only the purest desire can stand against Heaven!

Reach the meaning of Truth,

Transcend one's own Boundary...

Inheritor, my path... is the Way of Domination!

Ryan muttered unconsciously. He was deeply immersed in this sudden insight, forgetting all beside the cultivation path of Demon King Solomon's Arcane Art.

At the same time, the Ryan's status panel flickered lightly, as it was updating the information on it.

[...Demon King of Domination (level 1)]

~ ~ ~

When Ryan opened his eyes again, he immediately saw the white ceiling of a ward. He could feel his hand seemed to be injected with an infusion, so he was likely to have survived.

If so, it meant that…

"Oh, you have finally woken up, kid."

A stranger voice sounded kindly from outside the ward after Ryan heard the sound of the door being opened. His voice was deep, carrying an air of mellowed pride, though a more sensitive person might notice the sense of resignation hidden in his voice.

Even so, the owner of the voice appeared feeling gratified, it hinted that he was really glad Ryan had finally woken up.

Although Ryan recognized that man's voice from those animations he had watched back then, still, hearing it in his current situation confirmed his guess. Because, Ryan knew that only that man would be able to save him in time from that damned place.

That man was none other the winner of Fourth Fuyuki Holy Grail War, the Master of servant Saber, the infamous magus-killer; Emiya Kiritsugu.

"I have a good news and a bad news for you, kid. Which one do you want to hear first?" Kiritsugu took a chair from nearby, and seated himself beside Ryan.

Ryan wore a puzzled face as he looked at Emiya Kiritsugu.

"Good..?" Ryan muttered in confusion.

"The good news is... Congratulations, you have the qualification to be a magus, kid."

"....."

"Kids these days don't understand the joke... anyway, thank you for surviving, kid." Kiritsugu smiled gently while he patted Ryan on the head.

"The bad news is that your family all died in previous disaster, you're the only survivor, kid.

"Now, do you want to live in the orphanage like the other kids, or would you prefer being adopted by an old man like me?

"Let's make it clear now. I am also a magus." Emiya Kiritsugu said with genial smile.

"I am–..."

Ryan was going to agree when Kiritsugu suddenly spoke,

"Ah, I almost forget, there's another bad news, kid."

There's more bad news?!

Ryan screamed inside his heart, but he still wore a puzzled look on his face.

"You will likely die not long later due to the corruption of evil energy inside your body, kid. Your newly awakened Mystic Code can slightly suppress that evil thing for the moment, but it would not last long. You need to learn magecraft soon, kid."

Ryan:"....."

What the actual fuck?!