That too-casual smile creeps back onto Archer's face, and he casts his gaze down in the most dismissive way he can manage. It's as he thought: trying to look this man in the eyes without wearing masks of sarcasm and casual mockery is just beyond him. He can't make out how much of what he's feeling is bitterness, how much is frustration, guilt, shame, regret--but he can channel all of it, whatever it is, into calculated smugness.

He has the only answer he could have sought in Kiritsugu's eyes, anyway. There's none of the kindness he still remembers there.

"Should I know the whims of a machine like that?" He shrugs. "I've met stranger things than magi here. Children from ruined worlds, aliens like nothing you've seen, mutants and monsters..."

He glances up from the ground again, and a laugh escapes him. He has to restrain himself so that it's short, because really, it's funny. This encounter is really funny. "You're nothing special in a world that sees such things, Emiya Kiritsugu."

Of course, he's trying to convince himself as much as anyone else.