Kiritsugu Emiya Husbando

Kiritsugu Emiya is the Master of Saber in the Fourth Holy Grail War of Fate/Zero. He is the husband of Irisviel von Einzbern, the father of Illyasviel von Einzbern, and the adoptive father of Shirou Emiya. He is the main protagonist of Fate/Zero and has a minor role in Fate/stay night. He was a freelancer and notoriously known as the Magus Killer. He wears a black suit and trench coat. His face is blank and his eyes are vacant. As a boy, his shining eyes and tanned skin make him look cheerful. Kiritsugu is a brooding and conflicted person. In his youth, he wished to become a Hero of Justice and protect the weak. He is often haunted by Shirley's question about what he wants to become, and how she believed he alone had the power to change the world. His hesitation to kill his first love when she became a Dead Apostle resulted in the death of everyone on the Island. Kiritsugu, realizing that his father was the cause of this and he would continue his Dead Apostle experiment, hardened his resolve and killed his father to prevent more deaths. Kiritsugu then resolved to make meaning and worth from the murder of his father. Only by hunting and assassinating all heretic magi like his father could he truly prevent such tragedies from occurring again. He lost all traces of youthful innocence after having spent his life going through countless battles while trying to obtain a utopia that could never be fulfilled, which caused him to become incredibly self-loathing. After learning of the Grail, he sought to use it to create the utopia from his dream. He feels no emotion from personal victories over his targets, seeing them as nothing more than successful taunts with calculated resolutions. In order to pursue his dream, he attempts to distance himself from his emotions, acting as the "machine that is Emiya Kiritsugu." He has managed to become completely devoted to any duty without showing any emotional wavering, though he is prone to occasionally fall into moments of extreme emotion and despair. When he admits that he is afraid and terrified of Kirei Kotomine, it is partly because of Kirei's bizarre personality, but also because of the fact that he fears that Kirei might be the one and only person who can kill him. When examining the Contender, he begins to wonder if he will remember the touch of his wife and daughter after the Grail War ends and falls into self-derision upon realizing the eight-year-old Ilya weighs less than a rifle. He dislikes such emotions interfering with his work, believing that his interactions with his family have made him more susceptible to sentimentalism in viewing the figures of his own wife and daughter in a passing mother holding her crying child. Kiritsugu tries to hold to the belief that there is no differentiation in sacrifice, that all life is equal and choosing the path leading to a smaller sacrifice is for the best. With a target that must be eliminated to save the world by obtaining the Grail, killing one thousand people to save at least five billion more should be an easy task for him. He finds himself unable to do so when planning to destroy the Hyatt hotel. He hates the idea of fatal romanticism like the hope that the innocent tenants will be able to escape the hotel in time impeding his abilities. Such ideas and sentiment would kill him on the battlefield, so he feels that he must rid himself of them as much as possible. He has a close connection to Maiya that is older than the one with Irisviel, sharing a blood-stained existence not even his wife has ever seen. She acts to help balance his emotions, as she is often even more emotionless than him. Despite being close and having had a sexual relationship for a long duration of time, he shares no romantic feelings for her and attempts to simply regard her as a tool that will eventually die to serve her purpose. Because allowing his wife to sacrifice herself to complete the Grail is a betrayal towards her love, no matter what others say, it is necessary that he does not hesitate in this betrayal. Kiritsugu sees his sexual relationship with Maiya as a rehearsal before this betrayal, a form of self-abuse to steal his nerves while walking down this path. During the last moments of Maiya's life, he attempts to calmly tell her that she has nothing to worry about because her tasks are complete, and simply states "you will die here." He finds himself unable to speak, and instead, he almost finds himself crying for her. She eventually reminds him of his purpose and tells him to save his tears for Irisviel, allowing him to finally say, "Maiya, your task is complete." He stopped smoking while with the Einzbern family but takes it up again during the Grail War: partly because he could not find his favorite brand, but mostly out of consideration for his wife and child. He instantly buys a pack out of habit and once again begins smoking as if it hadn’t been ten years. Being a Japanese native, he feels better while in the country despite being used to travel. After rescuing Shirou, he found salvation in his despair. Before his death, he found a glimmer of hope as Shirou inherited his ideals and he believed Shirou would be able to do better than he had. He once told a young Shirou that "boys who make a girl cry will end in ruins", something he experienced prior to his death. Overall, while Kiritsugu is a ruthless, conflicted, calculating, stoic, and cold-blooded killer who has committed some villainous acts in order to achieve his goals, he is idealistic and has good intentions which makes him mostly an anti-hero.