Instigator / Pro
Sir.Lancelot's avatar
Sir.Lancelot
1603
rating
195
debates
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Topic
#6143

Fate Zero: Kirei was the superior fighter in his duel against Emiya Kiritsugu.

Status
Debating

Waiting for the next argument from the contender.

Round will be automatically forfeited in:

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Tags
anime
Parameters
Publication date
Last updated date
Type
Rated
Number of rounds
5
Time for argument
One week
Max argument characters
10,000
Voting period
One month
Point system
Multiple criterions
Voting system
Open
Minimal rating
1,724
Contender / Con
whiteflame's avatar
whiteflame
1724
rating
27
debates
88.89%
won
Description

Me and whiteflame are debating about this fight.:
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=FDsOYtRwR5I&pp=ygUMI2tpcmVpa2VlbmFu

Both were fighting over The Holy Grail, but neither opponent claimed the victory because the fight was interrupted by external circumstances.

It is my belief that if nothing had interfered with the fight and it had continued, the odds favored Kirei.

Round 1
Sir.Lancelot's avatar
Sir.Lancelot
Pro
#1
Main Point

Kotomine Kirei is the better fighter between him and Emiya Kiritsugu, and this is a one-sided comparison.
  • Emiya Kiritsugu is the one with the large hair, the gun, and the black leather trenchcoat.
  • Kotomine Kirei is the short-haired guy with the crucifix and claw-like swords.

Winning Conditions
  • I must compare their skills & abilities and show that Kirei is the better fighter of the two. While the description states that I believe the odds favor Kirei in this fight, this is a personal off-the-record admission that is unrelated to the resolution and will therefore not be considered an extension of my burden of proof.
  • So voters and judges shall factor in the information. Which is this debate is not a discussion about Kirei or Kiritsugu's probability of success. The reason why is that arguing Kirei or Emiya Kiritsugu's chances at victory are off-topic. And victory or success is not always decided by skill alone, but by a combination of circumstances, such discussions raises the burden of either side which makes the resolution too difficult or impossible to discuss. The fight was interrupted by the shockwave that destroyed both fighters, and thus both participants were unable to continue. 
  • I am arguing that Kirei is the superior fighter in this fight, while Con is arguing the reverse. This makes this an on-balance debate where the burden of proof is shared. 
I am not required to prove that Kirei would win, only that he was the better combatant. Those are the stipulations and framework that determine the outcome of this debate.
Context/Backstory: The fight begins with Kirei and Kiritsugu fighting it out to the death or The Holy Grail. But the fight is ended due to the roof collapsing on both of them, or an unrelated circumstance that ends it before each can show the full range & depth of their abilities. 
But make no mistake, it’s no contest. The answer is clearly Kirei, and this is very obvious.

Avalon

For starters, Emiya Kiritsugu was clearly outmatched from the very beginning. The only reason he stood a chance is because of Avalon granting him healing powers. Like a Minecraft potion that refills your health bar, but Kiritsugu never uses it for offense. Just to recover. Which brings me to my first point.

Kirei killed Emiya Kiritsugu in this fight.

So at 0:42, . Emiya Kiritsugu is clearly unnerved and taken off-guard by Kirei charging at him, and how quick he is. To compensate, Emiya Kiritsugu uses his time alteration powers to slow down reality, giving him enough time to move out of the way of Kirei’s kicks. Kirei's kicks have skull-shattering force and would have splashed his brains all over the wall.
Despite time being slowed, Kirei is able to adjust by increasing the levels of his speed to react accordingly and blocks each of Kiritsugu’s rapid-fire shots with his swords. 
Demonstrating quicker reflexes.

At 1:13, the time alteration ability is still in effect. Which means ideally, Emiya Kiritsugu should be able to avoid this next attack easily. 
But that’s not what happens. Kirei’s punch lands, crushing Emiya Kiritsugu’s ribcage and launches Emiya into the backwall. Emiya Kiritsugu died from this strike.
The impact of Kirei’s punch turned Emiya’s heart and organs to mush, while shattering his bones. It’s only because of Avalon reviving Kiritsugu by healing the damage that he was even able to continue the fight. 
But me and majority of the anime community already consider this punch an obvious demonstration of Kirei's combat abilities far exceeding Emiya Kiritsugu's own battle feats.

Stats & Reflexes

There exists a tiering hierarchy scale in which anime character are ranked from weakest to strongest, and there are different versions of this scale. According to topstrongestfandom.com, Kirei's attack potency, speed, and durability are all speculated to be higher than Emiya Kiritsugu's. With the rest of their abilities being the same level. 
This means that according to the estimates, Kirei’s recorded stats demonstrate a moderate advantage in battle prowess over Kiritsugu. According to the weaknesses on the two sites for both enemies, Kirei has none while Emiya Kiritsugu destroys his body every-time he uses time acceleration. And he uses his time altering abilities quite repeatedly in this fight. 

In the time-stamp, 1:29, Emiya Kiritsugu triples the time alteration effect and most opponents would never be able to stop Kiritsugu’s attacks. But with one arm and one eye, Kirei manages to block ALL of Kiritsugu’s attacks. Emiya Kiritsugu vs Kotomine Kirei I Fate Zero [60 FPS]
 It is thought by some traditional martial arts experts that sight is not a requirement to fight, once certain skills have been mastered. Kiritsugu guesses and assumes that Kirei has the power to foresee and predict attacks before they happen. 

Mentality

Kotomine Kirei has the psychological edge over Emiya Kiritsugu. Kiritsugu’s main weapon is reading his opponents and then weaponizing their weaknesses against them, but Kirei being a cold-hearted psychopath lacks any pleasure or passion and Kiritsugu is unable to get a read on him. 

  • This concept, according to Kiritusugu’s very admission, makes Kotomine Kirei his living nightmare. This is proven at 2:21. Emiya Kiritsugu, being a passionate idealist fights with conviction and commitment to his cause, but is limited by the restraints and weaknesses of his ideology, while Kirei’s ruthlessness and persistence make him more adaptable and flexible in this regard. 

Kirei Kotomine is the finished product, who Emiya Kiritsugu could have become without his emotional attachments. Emiya Kiritsugu is trying desperately to shed his humanity to protect people, while Kirei is trying to live a normal life and live with purpose. Each fight with equal commitment, even if Kirei is not fighting for a specific cause. Emiya Kiritsugu himself is even confused why Kirei tries so hard. Kirei Kotomine is who everyone thinks Emiya Kiritsugu is, the ultimate killing machine. 

                     topstrongestfandom.com
                     Kirei Kotomine | Top-Strongest Wikia | Fandom
                     Kiritsugu Emiya | Top-Strongest Wikia | Fandom

whiteflame's avatar
whiteflame
Con
#2
Great start from my opponent, Sir.Lancelot. I don’t recall having done this type of debate before, but I’m excited to participate against such a big fan of the series who has clearly done his homework. Thank you for inviting me to do this and taking me out of retirement… at least for now.

Framework

I’ll start by reframing how this debate should be evaluated.

Pro’s framing is problematic because how he establishes that someone is the “superior fighter” lacks context. This isn’t a debate either of us can win by simply showing that one side outstrips the other in one or even multiple categories. All those do is demonstrate superiority in those categories. They can be factors in determining who is the superior fighter, but as I’ll show later, they’re not the only ones to consider. And many of these factors utilize distinct measuring sticks, e.g. how do we weigh the importance of excelling in strength vs. mentality? Pro provides no means to weigh different categories against one another, yet, according to Pro, we somehow have to do this without assessing likely outcomes.

Removing outcomes from the equation renders metrics devoid of meaning. This debate isn’t about who has a preponderance of skills anymore than it’s about who has the “best” single skill; it’s about whose skills are better in the aggregate qualitatively, and we need some way to determine that.

So I’m going to suggest a different tack: that we game out this fight, using the video that we have [1] as evidence for how much of the fight played out in one iteration, and assess how this fight is likely to play out over the course of several iterations (minus the cataclysm seen at the end of this fight) to decide who is the superior fighter. Pro did mention the issue of outside circumstances, but I will argue that how each fighter prepares for and adapts to these is a skill check. Outside of incidents that just end the fight on their own, these are tests of the participants. They aren’t a bug, they’re a feature.

Moreover, this isn’t a “no items, Final Destination” SSMB fight,[2] and can’t be treated as such, nor is what makes a superior fighter solely the capability to destroy your opponent in close combat. I will argue that anything that goes into improving a given fighter’s odds of victory, anything done or utilized deliberately towards that end during or even prior to the fight, necessarily demonstrates their superiority as well. As such, my bar for evaluating what makes a superior fighter is whoever creates the most opportunities to win this fight by permanently killing or incapacitating their foe.

With that out of the way, I’m going to spend this round on a deep dive into Kiritsugu and his strengths.

Tactics and Experience

Kiritsugu wields a variety of advanced combat tactics and, specifically, anti-magic tactics. He utilizes a mix of Magecraft and modern tools. He was trained in this regard by Natalia, a part-time Enforcer whose job was to hunt down and kill mages. He took this a step further, becoming “a ‘hunter’ that stops other heretical Magi”. He became skilled in assassination, wielding a wide variety of weapons, and various means of “catch[ing] up to his prey under all situations and conditions and bring it down.” That, plus his advanced knowledge of Magical Circuits and their detection, makes him incredibly effective both in using tools and magic to put down Mages.[3] So he has both the experience and the means to put down a variety of Magi.

Magecraft

Kiritsugu’s main skill is Innate Time Control wielded as Time Manipulation, “which is the ability to separate the passage of time inside a designated space from the "flow of time" in the outside world.” By chanting “Time Alter” and “Accel,” he gives himself a speed boost that he can release at any point. It’s generally restricted to short bursts with a maximum output of “Double Accel” that dramatically increases both his base speed and his reaction speed. This can be doubled yet again with “Square Accel”, and both can be used more consistently and for longer with Avalon inside of him, though I’ll come back to how that works shortly.[4] Long story short: dude is fast when he has to be.

I recognize that Kirei is fast, but he never outpaces Kiritsugu on screen while the latter’s Time Alter is in effect [0:44-0:48 and 1:43-2:01). This affords Kiritsugu opportunities to inflict terrible and lasting damage that Kirei cannot match. How?

Weapons and Ammunition

Kiritsugu’s Origin Bullets fired by his custom-made Thompson Contender were created from his first and second ribs and, while they have a number of interesting effects, I’m going to focus on the ones that matter most to this fight.

Note first the interaction between the Origin Bullet and Kirei’s Black Keys at 0:26. These Black Keys are made of magical energy, and like all magic that comes into contact with these bullets, the effect of the bullets extends all the way down through the Magic Circuits of the wielder. It’s described this way:

“If a magus' Circuits are a high-voltage power cable, then the impact of the bullet is comparatively a drop of water attaching itself to a thickly-placed electrical circuit. Once a conductive liquid becomes attached, the short-circuiting current will destroy the circuit itself, resulting in permanent damage.”[5]

This gets worse for anyone Kiritsugu faces with a stronger magical defense, as that only increases the destructive capability of these Origin Bullets. This comes from his two Origins: “Severing,” which reduces those circuits to chaos, and “Binding,” which binds them back together in a way that renders them inoperable so they cannot be repaired. 

And it’s not enough for Kirei to just use his strength and speed to compensate for his defensive deficits. “The bullets excel in penetration, and there is little outside of magecraft capable of blocking them,” as demonstrated in this very fight. At 2:06, with no other options, Kirei is forced to sacrifice his arm to redirect just one bullet. Sure, he proves himself capable in melee combat even after suffering this injury, he only becomes more vulnerable to Kiritsugu’s ranged attacks and he has no meaningful answer to a point-blank shot.

But it’s not just that Kiritsugu’s bullets are effective; he is also basically guaranteed to be able to take multiple shots with it. How?

Avalon

Avalon significantly raises the limits that Kiritsugu’s body can reach. As a Conceptual Weapon residing within himself, it functions automatically, granting him the full effects of its immortality upon injury or even death. It is stated that this, combined with his Innate Time Control, offers him such a significant advantage that he could even defeat a Servant (spirits summoned to fight for the Holy Grail that function as high rank familiars for mages [6]) in combat, meaning he absolutely can keep up with and defeat superhuman opponents like Kirei.[7]

And the immortality this item offers is a huge advantage for Kiritsugu. As Pro points out, he was  killed by Kirei at 1:24, but mere seconds later at 1:33 has revived and is firing on Kirei with his machine gun. With Avalon on the battlefield, Kiritsugu’s fighting capacity does not end even with his death, which affords him more opportunities to attack and catch Kirei off guard.

Conclusion

The superior fighter in this contest is the one who can best utilize all the opportunities available to them, not just the one who can win a fistfight. Pro has the unenviable task of explaining why Kirei stands superior in spite of his heavily limited capabilities and adaptability, whereas, as I’ve shown, Kiritsugu lacks neither. He has the tactics, resources, speed, firepower, survivability and healing to stay up and put down Kirei. Kirei’s only effective response is to close the distance and hope that he can somehow overwhelm Avalon’s healing capacity, something we’ve never seen him do. This fight is Kiritsugu’s to lose because he controls so many aspects of it, ergo he is the superior fighter.

  1. https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=FDsOYtRwR5I&pp=ygUMI2tpcmVpa2VlbmFu
  2. https://www.ssbwiki.com/No_items,_Fox_only,_Final_Destination
  3. https://typemoon.fandom.com/wiki/Kiritsugu_Emiya#Anti-Magi_tactics
  4. https://typemoon.fandom.com/wiki/Kiritsugu_Emiya#Magecraft
  5. https://typemoon.fandom.com/wiki/Kiritsugu_Emiya#Thompson_Contender
  6. https://typemoon.fandom.com/wiki/Servant#Characteristics
  7. https://typemoon.fandom.com/wiki/Kiritsugu_Emiya#Avalon

Round 2
Sir.Lancelot's avatar
Sir.Lancelot
Pro
#3
Con concedes a lot of lee-way here and drops all of my arguments. Instead of bolstering his case, he is attempting to establish a new framework by redefining all my rules. Here are all the arguments that Con dropped.:
  • Kirei killed Emiya Kiritsugu in this fight. Which means Kirei already won.
  • Kirei’s strength, speed, and reflexes exceed Kiritsugu’s, and Kirei’s stats are tiered as higher, according to Top-Strongest.
  • Kirei has the psychological edge over Kiritsugu by means of being more ruthless and devoid of restraint.
  • Con himself indirectly acknowledges that Kirei would best Kiritsugu in close-ranged combat, and Kirei is basically superhuman while Kiritsugu isn’t.
By those four points alone, I have firmly established the burden of proof for my side and finalized my case. Con desperately needs his framing to stick because if it doesn’t, then it’s a definitive loss. But Con leaves out certain details that would meaningfully enable us to accept his framework.:
  1. Is he rejecting mine completely to replace mine with his own?
  2. Is he accepting my framework, but extending the factors to include his category of exploiting opportunities to secure victory?

Evaluating what makes a superior fighter is whoever creates the most opportunities to win this fight by killing their foe.

There is no way to fairly or reliably compare this. Having better opportunities available and then weaponizing them isn’t a demonstration of creativity or resourcefulness, and having unfair advantages is irrelevant to what makes the better fighter, as a more advanced fighter could make a mistake and the opponent could get lucky. This has nothing to do with superiority or inferiority. 

The superior fighter in this contest is the one who can best utilize all the opportunities available to them, not just the one who can win a fistfight. This fight is Kiritsugu’s to lose because he controls so many aspects of it, ergo he is the superior fighter.

Kiritsugu is the luckier fighter, not the superior fighter. This is more of an interpretation of the resolution that is essentially arguing that Kiritsugu’s luck is enough to overcome the skill gap, but that’s different than arguing he is the better fighter.
When drawing the line between inferiority and superiority in terms of fighting, the only thing that defines the difference is fighting ability. And here are the factors and categories that make up fighting ability.:
  • Skills/Abilities
  • Athleticism
In the absence of any criteria for comparison, these are the standard metrics that judges and voters fall back on universally. For that reason alone, I am conceding that all of Kiritsugu’s weapons and abilities can be used in this debate by Con, except for one. Avalon.
Avalon does not count as a factor, as it is irrelevant to arguing who has the superior fighting ability. Avalon is not an extension of Kiritsugu’s own abilities. Avalon is an enhancer which allows Kiritsugu to die and respawn an infinite amount of times, further reinforcing Kiritsugu’s weakness as an opponent that he requires avalon to even stand a chance against Kirei.

Consider these two scenarios.:
  • If a professional gamer 1v1’s a noob, but the noob has cheats like aimbot and auto-regeneration, and manages to win based on those two alone. The gaming community would not recognize the noob as the better player and neither would you.
  • If prime Mike Tyson had to box prime Ronald Reagan. But after every defeat, Mike Tyson had to box and win against another clone of Ronald Reagen. Eventually, Tyson would cave to fatigue and lose. This does not mean Ronald Reagen is the better boxer.

Kiritsugu can and should be dead without avalon, as he already lost the fight against Kirei. 
And the limitations of avalon prevent it from being able to revive a host whose brain is completely destroyed. And if any of Kirei’s kicks from earlier landed, then Kiritsugu would be unable to do anything about it. 

Skills & Abilities

Kirei has also mastered a variety of magics.: Alchemy, necromancy, summoning, divination, and healing. And he has managed to kill 20 magus with just his bare hands. Earlier I mentioned that his punch killed Kiritsugu and there’s a reason for that. Kirei’s muscles are solidified to the point of being steel-like, and even after his prime he is able to break a tree that is over 30 cm wide. “He is able to break apart a tree without utilizing his arms because his strength as a martial arts master is not only produced from the wrist.” 1

Con says that Kirei is unable to outpace Kiritsugu during time-alter. But this is simply more than untrue. When Kiritsugu tripled his time acceleration, I showed the timestamp in the first round about how Kirei deflected all of his attacks without seeing any of them.  
“Can react to gunfire, twice, from a distance. Could react to Kiritsugu when the latter used Triple Accel, which made him "three times faster than normal humans" while injured.”
“Even when Kiritsugu accelerated his speed by three times, and Kirei had one usable arm and blood in his eye, he was able to block all of Kiritsugu's attacks with one hand.”

The superior fighter is the one who can best utilize all the opportunities available to them, not just the one who can win a fistfight.  This fight is Kiritsugu’s to lose because he controls so many aspects of it, ergo he is the superior fighter.
What’s just as important as one who can best utilize the opportunities given, is the one who reacts and adapts to each scenario.
Kirei demonstrates this. When Kiritsugu initially doubles his time acceleration to dodge the kicks that Kirei throws at him, Kirei realizes what happened. Kirei then decides he will adjust his defensive timing and is certain that Kiritsugu will not evade him.
What happens is Kirei lands his punch, and the strike kills Kiritsugu. 

Even after Kirei is taken off-guard by Kiritsugu’s revival and is forced to sacrifice an arm. Kirei immediately recognizes Kiritsugu’s regeneration and has already decided how he's going to kill Kiritsugu. His plan is to destroy Emiya Kiritsugu’s brain and he realizes he can’t use his right arm, but he never once doubts that he will be successful. Destroying Kiritsugu's brain would prevent him from coming back to life.
Emiya Kiritsugu has now showed all his cards, but Kirei still has a wide variety of resources he can use. He can draw on more Command Seals to enhance his speed and strength, forcing Kiritsugu on the defensive. 

There is a reload time for Emiya Kiritsugu’s time-acceleration abilities. 
And it is very easy for Emiya to slip up here, especially now that Kirei is charging at him. Kirei now knows the full extent of Kiritsugu's abilities.

If any of Kirei’s blades land, Kiritsugu will die again but he won’t be able to revive quickly enough to Kirei destroying his brain while he’s down. 
Never once does Emiya Kiritsugu out-fight Kirei. Kirei is constantly forcing Emiya Kiritsugu on the defensive. 

Removing outcomes from the equation renders metrics devoid of meaning.
We don’t have an outcome to this fight and based on the clues given, the few advantages that Kiritsugu have in this duel never suggest that he’s winning. At times, he is able to surprise Kirei and at the end. It shows both fighters about to deliver the killing blow, but in this position, it could have gone either way. The majority of the fight however, the outcomes appear to suggest Kirei is dominating the whole fight.

“If a magus' Circuits are a high-voltage power cable, then the impact of the bullet is a drop of water attaching itself to a thickly-placed electrical circuit. Once a conductive liquid becomes attached, the short-circuiting current will destroy the circuit itself, resulting in permanent damage.”[5]
This gets worse for anyone Kiritsugu faces with a stronger magical defense, as that increases the destructive capability of these Origin Bullets.
And it’s not enough for Kirei to just use his strength and speed to compensate for his defensive deficits. “The bullets excel in penetration, and there is little outside of magecraft capable of blocking them,” as demonstrated in this very fight. At 2:06, with no other options, Kirei is forced to sacrifice his arm to redirect just one bullet. Sure, he proves himself capable in melee combat even after suffering this injury, he only becomes more vulnerable to Kiritsugu’s ranged attacks and he has no meaningful answer to a point-blank shot.
Emiya Kiritsugu ran out of calico ammo this fight, but even after Kirei sacrificing his arm. Emiya Kiritsugu even admits to himself that he stands no chance against Kirei in close-ranged melee combat, despite the latter having only one arm. (3:29) KIREI VS KIRITSUGU! "The Last Command Spell" Fate/Zero Season 2 Episode 11 Reaction
This changes everything. Kirei is very obviously the superior fighter.

Kirei isn’t using his own mana sources, so this significantly mitigates the damage that The Origin Bullet can do. He is using Command Seals as the source of his black keys. Kirei’s muscles are described as steel-like, his body is super durable. He is able to tank bullets to his head, and Kirei is wearing bulletproof clothing in this fight. 
And there are a variety of solutions for Kiritsugu’s Origin Bullets. If the target is not using any magic, then Origin Bullets are basically just regular bullets. Kirei could materialize his blades from his Command Seals as a temporary shield and buy himself enough time to close the distance between Kiritsugu to attack. 
Kirei can use his Command Seals to enhance his speed, or strength to prevent Kiritsugu from getting a point-blank shot. Since Kirei can predict attacks, this wouldn’t be difficult to do in theory.

The mistake is assuming Kirei needs to block the bullets. All he has to do is dodge. Kirei's ability to counter Kiritsugu's rapid fire shots means that Kirei can dodge the Origin Bullets with ease.
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