But what stopped Kotomine Kirei was an impediment beyond his expectations.

Suddenly a veil of white smoke appeared between him and the prey, completely obscuring his vision, and with it an irritating smell of chemical reactions rushed into his nostrils.

"Smokescreen!?"

What suddenly appeared in front of Kotomine Kirei was a smokescreen released by a military-use smoke dispersion bomb.

And in that instant when Kirei's sight was obscured by the smokescreen, Maiya escaped with haste.

Although Kotomine Kirei tossed a Black Key in the direction of the noise, he did not hit the target. The instinct of an executor who's been through countless battles told him that he could not move carelessly in the current predicament.

Kotomine Kirei held Black Keys in both hands, not daring to let his guard down the slightest, and surveyed his surroundings while waiting for the smoke to disperse. In this building exposed to strong winds, the thick smoke only took several seconds to dissipate-- but, that woman managed to escape in these mere seconds.

Only he was left. Realizing he was the only person left in this empty building, Kirei grunted and put away his Black Keys. He did not have any intention of pursuit.

Kirei picked up the smoke dispersion bomb, now empty of all smoke, from the ground and began to inspect it. It's an American grenade model. There isn't anything special about it; it's simply something that anyone can get if they had the right connections.

It wasn't tossed by that woman, because if he had found that she had moved in the slightest then he would've thrown a Black Key to stop her. This had been tossed in front of him by someone else to help that woman escape.

Of course, there shouldn't be anyone else inside this building. If that's the case, then the smoke grenade should have been tossed in from outside the building.

Kirei walked to the edge of the building-- ignoring the wind tugging at his frock-- and looked down.

Around the rubble of the former Fuyuki Hyatt hotel, there aren't any buildings that can stand shoulder to shoulder with this one. The distance from ground level to this position is at least a hundred and fifty meters. It'd be hard to aim at this position precisely even with a long range weapon. Not to mention a hand tossed smoke grenade. It's a cosmic farce for someone to toss that up from ground level.

But Kirei was, after all, an executor who has hunted many strange magi before. He was already thoroughly used to facing enemies who were beyond common sense. To him, this level of strangeness didn't have anything that was worth being surprised over.

Somewhere below him existed the magus who stopped him.

- Fate/Zero: Act 5, Part 2