With the Witch as Rider's Master, there was no logic in turning this into a battle of attrition, but sadly the way things were going it didn't look like much was going to change anytime soo-
In a flash of red, Rider suddenly vanished.
It took a few moments for the sudden turn of events to register to those there.
"What happened?" Sakura looked around frantically.
"It was a Command Seal activation." Illya matched her movements quickly. "Caster teleported Rider somewhere."
"You don't think that…" Luvia started before an overwhelming spike of prana caught all of their attention…
o. o. o.
Berserker had just made it to the entrance of the temple when he was utterly annihilated by a pristine white beam of power. His body reduced to little more than small portions of cooked flesh accompanied by ash that was ejected from the narrow arch of the Temple all the way back into the town, somewhere between where the two fights had taken place.
Had Shirou and Rin attempted to follow the rampaging giant up there, they no doubt would have been killed along with him.
"▄▄▄██▄▄▄_!"
Over a hundred meters up, Rin and Shirou saw Rider and the Pegasus she was riding on slow just enough for the two to make them out. Even from so far away, the two had to brace themselves from the harsh winds from the Phantasmal Beast that transcended its kind.
The situation was bad for them with Berserker gone and a new Servant to deal with, but even so Rin and Shirou had to instinctively pause to take in the breathtaking sight. It was one thing to hear and read about Rider's mount, but to see it in person was simply sublime.
"Rider! I command you as your Master to use all your power to kill those two now!"
Like many times before, the Witch ruined the moment with the use of another Command Seal, causing everyone there to suddenly still in horror as the words were comprehended.
The distance between the two sides was well over a hundred meters, but no one doubted that it would be covered in but a few scant moments.
Thirty-five hammers were simultaneously cocked back.
They would have to do.
Trace. On.
"Rin!" Shirou reached out for his accomplice with one hand while sticking the other out in the direction of Rider, who had already begun to prepare for her next attack by turning into nothing more than a pure white light again and shot up into the sky at unfair speeds and pulling a one eighty just as quickly. No doubt in order to "attack with all her power", Rider needed to get a bit of extra momentum going, Command Seal or not.
It was a shape he was more intimately familiar with than his own body. More than the blades fabricated from his father's… no, that should only make sense. If those swords were Kiritsugu Emiya's final gift to Shirou, than this was the man's first.
Alarmed at the turn of events, Rin complied instinctively to Shirou's demand and pulled herself as close to him as possible. The hairs on the back of her neck stood up as high as they could go and her teeth clenched tightly as he hugged her close with one arm.
What the hell had she been thinking when she forced herself to go with him on the front lines?! Victory and plans be damned, how could anyone function against something like this?! They'd have to be insane!
It was ironic. Shirou had inherited Kiritsugu's regrets and lamentations. Remains of failed and forgotten memories. If there was anything that represented these things more than the three swords made for him, Shirou didn't want to know…
… And yet… those were not the only things he had inherited.
Thankfully, the person she was with was definitely someone that could fall under that category.
All hammers fell. Twenty-seven natural circuits and eight crest circuits all opened as wide as they could go, flooding with power to fuel a single spell.
Rho Aias wouldn't work here. Not against something as absurdly powerful as a Command Seal enhanced Phantasmal Beast. Neither would any of the other shields that he had in his inventory. Even if he did have the ability to manifest them all at once, Rider's attack would probably overwhelm them, if not leave them horrendously crippled and or wound them in the end.
Hope.
It was almost an absurd thing to imagine the Magus Killer having. After the people he killed. After the people he loved and sacrificed for the world, the idea of Kiritsugu having something as genuine, innocent, and infantile as hope was genuinely laughable. Every word uttered and action made by the man decried the very notion, putting faith in cold reasoning and cynicism.
But that was fine. From the very beginning of the War, Shirou had been in possession of the world's strongest defensive Noble Phantasm.
But that was fine. What the Magus Killer had aimed for in life was absurdly laughable to begin with and he knew it better than most people would ever achieve. It was a joke fitting for a comedy.
The man that had been so serious for a childish whim. The childish boy that had been given a serious goal. It was a suitable inversion of inheritance that complimented the two twisted men. Neither would be disappointed by the end results.
So it was only natural for the father's first gift to the boy be the greatest representation of hope. A hope that went beyond rationality and reason. A hope that had matched the man's unreasonable goal for humanity. A hope that was etched into the boy's very body on their first meeting.
"Avalon."
A hope of an Everdistant Utopia.
Gold met White.
What was once night was drowned out in a blinding day that eclipsed any light that the sun had produced on earth so far.
The Scabbard of Excalibur blinked in front of his outstretched hand just moments before Rider collided with them. The scabbard dissolving as quickly as it had formed, scattering around Shirou and Rin and engulfing them in a golden bounded field.
Everything outside the defense was shattered and obliterated.
The streets. A good portion of the buildings nearby. The streetlights. Cars. Everything was razed into less than dust around the two teens as the White Comet collided with their position and discharged literally everything it had in order to kill them.
But despite all that power, Rin and Shirou weren't even getting ruffled by stray gusts of wind.
For all intents and purposes, the two were in a completely different world now, the land of the Fae, untouched and uninfluenced by anything by the crude human world that they had just been fighting in.
It was a complete and total isolation that the ultimate treasure of Gilgamesh, Ea, could not surpass. In comparison, even if it was enhanced by a hundred Command Seals, Rider's attack would be completely ineffective.
"Ngh."
However, just because Rider's attack yielded no results didn't mean that Shirou did not sustain damage.
Avalon was always designed to be King Arthur's Noble Phantasm. It was only because it had been within Shirou's body for a decade that he was capable of manifesting it perfectly and actually use it to its full potential.
His ability to trace it had only magnified with his connection to Saber. The process was effortless to the point that it was almost sickeningly easy to do. It was as though if he wasn't careful, he could manifest a copy at a given moment without any power behind it at all.
Actually using it was another story.
Shirou was not Saber. His body lacked the tremendous potential that hers did. He could use Avalon in terms of function, but he was not designed to use Avalon in terms of cost. It was much like putting on a spare tire on a vehicle. The size and grip on the spare would more than likely not match up with the other three. It would work, but it was not a suitable replacement and would affect the car's performance overtime unless addressed.
"Shirou." Rin could tell as well. Being pressed directly against his body, she could feel him heat up rapidly from the use of his circuits. To use such a magnificent defense, to be in the realm of the Fae themselves, the cost in power must be absurd.
The only time Shirou had ever knowingly used the scabbard to its full potential in Kiritsugu's notes had been at the very end of the first route against Kotomine. Even then, Avalon had only been in use for a second or two at most, its full manifestation and use flashing out like golden lightning to clear and purge the physical sludge of the corrupted Grail around him in an instant.
Saber had used it slightly longer during her battle against Gilgamesh in that route, and she admittedly had been in poor shape at that, but even she didn't use it for a prolonged period like this.
While he had more and better circuits than in the alternate world, it still didn't change the fact that Avalon's requirements were inhumanely high. If the Princess had not recharged the gems on his belt earlier, taking advantage of the leyline under Rin's home, he would not have managed to last nearly as long as he did.
Five seconds.
At ten, the chaos and white light of Rider's attack was finally starting to abate, and not a moment too soon. Shirou's body temperature had skyrocketed, and with Avalon outside of his body for once, his natural healing abilities had been reduced to that of a human… no, that of a Living Apostle. Saber could risk activating a copy of it for extended periods of time, but he couldn't. He didn't know how long he could keep it stable under extreme conditions like this to use one reliably.
He felt something pop in his head. If everything wasn't white and gold already, his vision would have gone white regardless.
At fifteen seconds, the world finally returned to more than just white and gold. The chaotic pressure that had been Rider's attack had weakened enough that Shirou instantly stopped feeding power to Avalon and pulled the particles surrounding him and Rin back into his body.
The moment he did so, the pair were heavily buffeted by the remains of Rider's attack…
No, it wasn't the attack that was assaulting them.
Just a short distance away, Rider was still above the ground on her Pegasus. The beat of its wings were enough to nearly throw them off their feet, but it was blatantly obvious that the creature was exhausted. Its pristine white body was as immaculate as ever, but it no longer seemed to shine with an alien like power that almost oppressed its surroundings, and it was breathing heavily, completely exhausted.
It was almost sinful to witness such a degradation to something so precious. An unforgiveable crime.
On top of her mount, staring at Shirou with wide eyes, Rider's normally impassive expression replaced with one of disbelief. Her body covered in burns and scrapes, and it felt almost as if her very being was less imposing as it had been just moments before.
It was only natural. There were probably only a handful of defensive Noble Phantasms out there that could hold up against one as powerful as Bellerophon with her Pegasus, and even less that were so quick to enact. Even after fighting Gilgamesh, most would only assume that the greatest tools at Shirou's disposal were weapons.
But, that had been the point. Up until after he had been confronted by everyone about his actions, after Rider had been confronted, he had kept almost everything close to his chest. His plans. His abilities. His knowledge. Kiritsugu's notes. His Apostle nature.
… And Avalon.
Rider knew that he possessed the Scabbard, and of its remarkable healing properties when he had gotten rid of Zouken's crest worms, but he had always kept its secondary use a need to know secret up until he had told everyone what he knew, long after Rider had been taken.
Had the Witch known about it, he doubted that she would have ordered Rider to attack him, much less with a Command Seal. She would have been more careful with her actions…
The sound of rattling chains snaked through the dying sound of destruction and wind, and was heard before anything else was detected.
… And she certainly would not have forced Rider to pour literally everything into the attack, leaving her too exhausted to react properly for what came next.
Before anyone could tell what had happened, a golden blur whipped out at Rider. The Servant barely managed to jump away in time. However her mount was not so lucky, as it was ensnared by a golden chain that seemed to perpetually elongate and entangle itself around every limb it had.
"Enkidu," Shirou hissed, steam pouring from his mouth from his overheated body and blood dribbling from several orifices as a result of overstraining his circuits. He still had a fair amount of energy saved in his belt, but his body would still need some time to recover. Thankfully, the chain was surprisingly cheap to manifest for a Noble Phantasm, as was its activation ability.
"▄▄▄███▄██?!" The exhausted beast shouted in alarm and confusion as its wings could no longer move the way they were intended and it fell hard onto the mutilated road below.
It could not break the chains. The creature was born of divine blood, as tainted as it may have been, and lived long enough to a Phantasmal Beast. Depending on the legend, some might even consider it to be the pronator of the breed known as Pegasi.
And now that magnificent creature was entangled, unable to fight. Unable to help Rider. Unable to do be a problem.
Rin looked around frantically as she attempted to regain her bearings and stepped away from the epicenter of the crater the two Masters were now in. From Shirou to the Pegasus, to Rider, and back to Shirou. "Holy hell."
"You… what are you, boy?" Caster seemed to voice what everyone there was thinking. Even she, with a literal mountain's worth of prana at her disposal, wouldn't have been able to protect herself from that attack due to the beast's anti-magical properties surpassing even Saber's.
Scratch that. Out of all the Noble Phantasms, mysteries, and powers available to her, Rider's Bellerophon combined with a Command Seal was more or less the most destructive attack available to Caster.
And Shirou, not a Servant but a Master, had just blocked the damn thing.
Lancer and Saber were a short distance away from the devastation, close enough that they had to stop fighting in order to deal with the blowback of the attack. Both of them watched as the two Masters took Rider's attack head on, and then somehow counterattacked.
"Damn." Lancer chuckled as he watched everything unfold. "I'm going to have to be honest, Saber. As shitty as this all is, I'm kinda glad this isn't a normal War. If it was, that he would have destroyed all of us by now. Your Master's one scary fucking kid. He just won't go down."
Saber took a moment to nod absently before remembering the situation and turning her attention to Lancer again, both readying their weapons. "A bit crass, but I accept your compliment. Though it should be no surprise. He is my Master. It should be obvious that he would be of such quality."
Technically, Kiritsugu fell into the "scary Master" category as well, but she conveniently forgot to bring that up.
"Heh! Sure! Let's go with that!" Cu Culainn barked out in amusement before charging once more, and the world around them returned to nothing but blades and battle.
Shirou didn't pay Caster's question any mind. His entire body hurt too much to focus on pointless questions. Those few seconds using Avalon had done almost as much damage to his body and system circuit-wise as his entire ordeal against Gilgamesh. He could literally feel where parts of his insides had been seared like freshly cooked meat, and his lungs were attempting to flood themselves with blood every few breaths.
"Ugh," he snarled and pulled the shroud off his head in annoyance, its wrapping doing nothing to help his overheated skull and was constantly getting in the way of the blood he was trying to eject from his respiratory system.
Almost instantly he could feel himself cool off and feel much better. For a moment he assumed that it was the result of having the cool winter air brush against his head since the fighting began, but instinctively he looked up at the moon in the sky and held back a frown of annoyance.
Of course, the shroud muted the influence of his Apostle nature, and with the moon just past the full phase a night or two ago, the effects of his abnormal state would only be more pronounced.
He clicked his tongue as he felt his body begin to revert and repair itself. He hated being reminded of his semi-non-human state. As far as he was concerned it was nothing but a pain in the ass.
Oh well. At least this curse came with some benefits. He needed all the help he could get at the moment.
Another long breath of steam and some blood escaped his lips. The throbbing in his skull weakened. His vision cleared. His body temperature cooled slightly. His muscles ached less. His mind took in the situation.
He turned to Rider, who had managed to regain composure in the time it took him to relax. She was significantly weaker than before, but more than enough to kill him if needed. Her unsealed eyes only added to odds of that possibility coming to pass.
Rider. Assassin. Lancer. Those three had been accounted for. Several traps and tricks had been accounted for and addressed. But…
… Caster and Bazett had yet to make an appearance.
While the Witch couldn't do anything with Lancer anymore, the same was true with Saber. It was a calculated gamble that he had made on the pretense that Caster would be less inclined to do something rash if one of the largest threats to her was occupied. So long as Saber was fighting Lancer, she wouldn't be considered a threat and add to the stress of a degrading situation.
But, that just left Rin here, who was Archer's Master. Heroic Spirit Emiya. A future, alternate version of Shirou Emiya from a timeline that was not possible to be achieved from this one.
Had Rider been in better shape, it would not have been that difficult to deal with the two of them, but that wasn't the case now. She was low on power, weakened, and her mount was no longer accessible. The possibility of both Shirou and Rin being able to pull something off was definitely a non-zero factor.
But then again, after what Shirou had just done, the possibility of him alone being able to pull something was also non-zero.
Caster would not risk leaving the safety of her Temple, where she was at her strongest, just to deal with Rin. Which meant…
Two copies of Natalia formed themselves in Shirou's hands as he slowly took a few steps to Rider, clearly expressing his intentions. He would have summoned more weapons around him to fire as projectiles, but his body couldn't handle the strain at the moment. He need more time. Time that Rider also needed to recover.
It was a good thing he had thought ahead before they came.
The exhausted beauty's only sign that she understood what his intentions were was to materialize her ever present nail and chain in her own hands.
"Shirou!? What are you doing?!" Rin balked at his actions. When they had strategized earlier, he had not brought up purposely and personally going one on one against another Servant! There had been discussions of maybe being forced to hold off one due to bad timing, but not actively seeking a fight out!
"Something stupid. Don't drop your guard, and remember why we're here." Shirou didn't look away from Rider. If he did, he'd die. His body was in bad enough shape already without her eyes paralyzing him too.
In an ideal situation, Berserker would have gone into the Temple, distracted Caster and opened the way for Shirou and Rin to finish things off.
Slightly worse was if Caster somehow managed to hold off Berserker and they'd have to wait and fight off what was likely going to be Bazett until the giant opened things up for them again.
Summoning Rider on the other hand was still something that they had potentially anticipated, but had a far smaller list of answers for. Less so after Caster had essentially tried to use Rider to blitz them and drained Shirou of a lot of his power.
"… Ha. Hahaha."
And now the Witch was laughing and regaining confidence. Wonderful.
"I see now. That was your last defense wasn't it? A marvelous card, but you can barely stand now, can you?"
"Rin." Shirou's tone grew terse. He could possibly hold off Rider, but only at the expense of ignoring everything else right now.
The addressed looked around nervously before readying herself to move at a moment's notice. Her right hand slipped into her coat pocket.
The area around the crater was shrouded in a thick black cloud that resembled miasma. "Rider will need time to recover. As much as I am disliked, I am not an unreasonable Master. See? I've sent you some help."
The first thing everyone noticed were the skeleton warriors rising in droves. Each one standing a head above the average male, with not a scrap of flesh on them and wielding a wide assortment of dangerous looking implements as crude looking as they were.
Shirou wasn't worried about those. Even in his current state he could plow right through them easily.
At the edge of the crater closest to the temple, just at the edge of his peripheral vision, a smaller figure stood up. A woman dressed in only dirty robes and gloves that went to her wrists. Her eyes were sallow and glazed. Her skin pale as if she had not eaten anything reasonable or seen the sun in days. Her short magenta hair a mess.
Shirou's fists tightened on his blades as he caught the slightest glimpses of Bazett. She had clearly seen better days, and if nothing was done soon she probably wouldn't last much longer.
"Ugh?!" Shirou's thoughts were interrupted by a surprised choking noise made from Rin. Rider's eyes also flashed to whatever it was that had caught Rin off guard, and for a brief moment even the Servant couldn't hide herself being completely blindsided. He was about to ask what had her so alarmed, but was beaten to the punch.
"Well now. Fancy seeing you on the front lines, Rin. Then again, knowing you, it was likely you had just lost your patience again."
The Magus Killer froze as the deep masculine voice massaged his eardrums with a soothing venomous sound. He could practically hear the owner smirk.
"… Kotomine."
The man had died. Illya and Saber had confirmed it. Caster had killed him and then in order to obtain his Command Seals absconded with his bod-
Stupid.
Stupid. Stupid stupid stupid STUPID!
Caster had taken Kirei's body with her when they were at the castle. Of course the bitch was going to try and get as much out of him as possible, even if that meant bringing him back to life if possible…
… Which it was considering he was dealing with Medea of Fucking Colchis! It was in her bloody legend when she had tricked the King Pelias' daughters to kill him after cutting apart an old ram and then bringing it back as a foal!
"I see that Emiya is still alive and well, although I suppose that is to be expected. Even if they have different blood, the boy is no doubt his father's son. Stubborn and irrational to a comical fault, if it wasn't so effective," Kirei continued. Now that Shirou focused on the voice, he could tell that its tone was slightly different, meaning that it was likely the bastard also got the de-aging treatment too.
It was true. If Shirou could spare the moment to turn and look he'd see that his assumption was correct. Though his garb remained the same, Kirei Kotomine looked as if his body had regressed at least a decade in age… and doubled that amount in stress. His frame and appearance was younger, but his skin was several shades paler than it should have been. His hair frayed and dried to the point of being straw. His eyes so sunken that a normal person would wonder if the priest's eyes were even functional. His clothing unkempt, as if worn for days on end on the street without being washed.
Even so, the clearly amused look on his face seemed to decry any discomfort he was experiencing in his current state or the situation he was in.
This was bad. This was really bad. Rin could barely hold her own against Bazett in combat, but from what he researched, Kirei was possibly even worse. Rin wouldn't stand a chance against both of them at once…
"Kirei." Rin's one spoken word held so many emotions that not even Shirou could determine what held dominance in her mind. He'd be lying if he said that it didn't put a cold chill in his spine.
"Rin." No one needed to see the man to know that he was very much enjoying this. "Though most are surprised to see Emiya still alive after Rider's impressive display, I'm more intrigued in the fact that you're here with him. Or rather, I should be. You always did have an issue dealing with waiting. A fault of pride that you no doubt inherited from your father."
"Don't you dare talk about my father, you traitor. You are the one that killed him, aren't you?" Rin's voice was like a drawn bow, taut and strained to the limits, representing her emotions perfectly. The only problem was, what would she do if she snapped?
"Oh? You only now found out?" Kirei didn't bother to hide the fact. If anything he seemed barely surprised and amused. "Emiya must have told you something of interest recently. I'm disappointed that you didn't figure it out for yourself years ago. As much as a genius you claimed to be, you have the crippling tunnel vision of a mad bull. Only paying attention to what's in front of you."
"Rin. He's playing you. Don't fall for it." Shirou clenched his teeth. He couldn't turn his eyes off of Rider, but leaving his back open to Kirei and Bazett was just as lethal. He and Rin had to be in sync if they even had a hope of getting out of this alive.
"Emiya, please wait your turn. Rin and I are have a long needed conversation," Kirei chided. "Now, yes, your father. And your mother, no, allow me to clarify. I did not lay a hand on your kind mother, Aoi. Instead I thought I would kill two birds with one stone. You see, your uncle Kariya Matou was adamant about getting Sakura out of Zouken's hands, to the point that he became the Master of Berserker. But more than that, he was madly in love with your mother and bore a rather unpleasant jealousy and hatred for your father. Those emotions no doubt magnified magnificently when Sakura was given to her new family. It was rather easy to see during the war, what with how Bererker perpetually hounded Archer."
"You killed father for Uncle Kariya?" Rin was clearly having a hard time talking now, barely hanging onto her temper.
"You could say that, although I did have my own reasons at the time that took precedence. Reading others was not one of Tokiomi's strong point. Regardless, since your mother was worried about her devoted husband, and I had promised Kariya Tokiomi, I had them all gather together in the Church. First Tokiomi. Then Kairya, then Aoi. Of course, Tokiomi was already dead, and Kariya was on his last legs from the Matou conditioning and supporting Berserker, so Aoi naturally assumed the worst. The poor woman would not even allow the man who loved her all that time to tell her that he didn't kill Tokiomi before she assumed the worst and tore his heart apart. In his pitiful unstable condition, it's no wonder that he lost composure and tried to kill her. Of course, he failed in that just as he failed in saving Sakura." Kirei seemed to be unstably elated in seeing Rin's reaction to his deeds.
"Einzbern. Matou. Tohsaka. The three founding families that started this whole farce of a ritual brought low by a helper. It's so hilarious it's embarrassing. But then again, you're just as guilty as I, Emiya. You surpassed Tokiomi's Servant. You used the Einzbern's against them. And Zouken, even I must applaud you on that performance. How wonderfully devastating his last moments were. I must thank you for allowing me to be a part of it."
"You're more open than normal, priest." Shirou attempted to keep his voice even, but ended up with something akin to a growl. "I didn't think you'd be so comfortable being Caster's toy."
"Hehahahaha." The twisted laugh that escaped Kirei's mouth was more telling than any words were. "Ah. Caster was quite determined to see if I knew anything of particular use, so she made things easier in that regard when she brought me back. I am less, inhibited, as I am now. Be proud. I don't think I've ever heard of a Master that's invoked such a reaction from a Servant before. It was quite inspiring to see firsthand."
"Well he did kill Gilgamesh," Rin pointed out surly, the shock of the moment finally ebbing away enough to allow her to think somewhat clearly. "You wouldn't even pose a threat by comparison."
"Come now, Rin. As a magus you should know that everything is circumstantial. I taught you better than that," the Priest chided. "Speaking of circumstances, Emiya, I do hope you realize that if Caster studied my body, it also means she's studied my heart. Seeing as you were quite confident in Matou's ability to kill me…"
"Then affecting the girl in reverse should be more than possible…" the witch spoke the same time that Shirou's and Rin's lungs lurched up their throats.
"Shirou, you don't think she's… Archer?!" Rin's voice hitched as she no doubt was being informed about Sakura's turn of health right now.
His grip on his swords were so tight that his fingers screamed in pain. He wouldn't be surprised if he tore or cracked something. He didn't move though. "You really are a selfish fool. To think you're stupid enough to mess with that taint."
"I was surprised when I detected it. Such a vile and volatile concoction that surpasses anything that I could have imagined, even from my era. It's no wonder you were adamant in preventing any more from being produced." The Witch sounded proud of what she had done, as if she had finally regained control over everything. "Fitting that it will lead to my victory. True, Rider's former Master will be subject to its influence, but sacrifices are always a part of war, are they not, boy? I wonder, will she die first as her body consumes itself, or will she kill one of your precious comrades before she succumbs?"
That idiot. She was so far gone that she was completely ignoring just how absurdly dangerous messing with any part of Angra Mainyu could be. That didn't even take into account that they still didn't know exactly how Sakura was being affected by Caster's influence. Worst case, the girl might even…
"Shirou. I assume that the plan hasn't changed?" Rin's deadly even voice snapped him out of his thoughts, causing everyone else to look at her warily.
He let out a frustrated grunt. "No. It just sucks more and we have a shorter time limit."
"Like you claimed. I'm starting to hate you being right all the time." He heard a shift of clothing. "You mind if I change a few small parts?"
"Oh?" Kirei sounded genuinely curious, looking down at her from the top of the edge of the crater.
It wasn't like Shirou could do anything at the moment. He was the only one there that could keep Rider at bay reliably. Her skin had returned to being flawless, and her breathing had steadied, but even so she was cripplingly low on prana. That wouldn't be the case for long though.
In contrast, Shirou's insides had returned to almost normal temperatures, his normal bodily organs and functions healing as well, but his circuits were more than a bit warm and strained. He wouldn't be able to use them to their full potential for a while. That of course, didn't include the fact that Rider's eyes still had an effect on him, making every muscle in his body feel as if they were cramping painfully.
A bitter smile stretched on his face, and the metallic stare of his eyes sharpened. "I guess it can't be helped. Just don't get ahead of yourself. There is a schedule to keep."
"Don't worry." The girl's almost lackadaisical sigh was completely at odds with the situation. So much so that everyone watching her almost didn't notice as she took out a peculiar crystal blade out of her coat.
"It'll only take a moment."
Kirei moved before Rin did. The man may have been dead, but his instincts were intact enough to tell him that whatever tool the girl had in her hands was not for show. The man leapt to the side and threw three black keys at her that flew through the air with the force of high caliber bullets.
Unfortunately, making the first move was a mistake.
The knife poised over her heart remorselessly stabbed down. The pain triggering all the nerves in her body to fire off simultaneously.
With all of her circuits running on full, Rin swiped the mystic code Zelretch once.
"Es läßt frei. Werkzeug!"
Seven prismatic colors shined in the countless faces of the gem sword. Reflecting and angling at impossible angles an endless number of times, they accumulated at the tip, making it shine golden, an almost alien quality adorned it similar to that of Excalibur, but of a different origin.
The widespread beam of light didn't aim for Kirei, but went low. The power behind it was more than enough to completely obliterate the keys that had almost pierced the girl, and more than enough to shatter and dislodge a huge swath of the asphalt road at the edge of the crater she was standing in the middle of.
"Hugh?!" Kirei was caught off guard as all the ground beneath him erupted from underneath his feet, preventing any hope of allowing a foothold or changing his direction.
It was an understandable reaction. As lauded as magi envisioned themselves, the ability to perform mysteries of widespread destruction at will were few and far in between. A mystery used as much power as the results it yielded, so much like the machinery of today, thaumaturgy was aimed to yielding the greatest results with the smallest amount of input for the sake of efficiency. Using thaumaturgy in such a blunt fashion could be considered incredibly wasteful and pointless. If it required more energy than what the caster could produce by themselves, it shouldn't be considered to be used in the field. Even if the user's circuits could channel enough power, what they possessed within their body was another story entirely.
Case in point, being able to blow back roughly ten tons of stone and asphalt like Rin just did, should and would have needed to require several magi to pour in a great deal of power into a spell over a fair amount of time to yield similar results.
Rin Tohsaka only has on average about one hundred units of power in her body, but her circuits could utilize over a thousand. Still, it should be noted that as a magus, Rin's potential is outstanding. Normal magi only have about ten units in their body and their circuits about a hundred. Numerically, she can be considered at least ten times the worth as a normal magus.
Even so, she could not under normal circumstances be able to upheave that much stone so easily.
Or rather, she could, but it would waste all the power available to her. The spell would take up all the energy around her, enact, and leave her and Shirou with nothing but what's left in their bodies, and the charged gems in her pocket.
Again, it was a wasteful opening move that most magi wouldn't even think of, let alone consider. Almost akin to a Hail Mary. All or nothing. Thus, it was something that someone like Kirei, who not only was well accustomed to hunting and dispatching Magi and Vampires, but had raised Rin himself for ten years, was not expecting.
The sword was new. The power was new. The tactic was new. The power was new. It was all outside his ability to expect, and thus it had caught him off guard.
The resurrected man slipped backwards. The ground had been blown away beneath his feet, leaving him completely unable to change directions or properly adjust himself.
His eyes narrowed as he turned to his attacker and the ominous light she held in her hands. He could not defend. He could not dodge. By process of elimination, the only means left to him was to attack. His arms snapped to the side, throwing three Black Keys to either side of the girl in a wide arc that would avoid the next spray of light. Should she stay in place to attack him, she would no doubt be skewered.
"Verlasse den gesandten."
Rin didn't so much as hesitate as she pointed the glowing golden tip of the mystic code right at Kirei and blasted the area he was in with a beam of pure power several meters in every direction. The force of the focused blast was more than intense enough to hammer her back with the recoil, which she went with, skidding away from the focus of her rage just far enough to avoid being skewered from both sides.
Kirei's eyes dialated and the world around him seemed to slow down into instants.
He saw Emiya charge after Rider, completely ignoring what Rin did.
He saw Bazett strafe further around the crater in an effort to stay out of Rin's line of sight.
He saw the ground and any dirt between himself and the light erode rapidly into nothing and vanish.
The saccharine grin on his face widened with a mix of pride and self-mocking elation.
How annoying. Caster brought him back from the dead for nothing. He had went along with her plans and gotten his hopes up to see a completed Grail and this is where it got him.
The woman was truly hopeless. A desperate individual that grasped at anything and everything that caught her eye without paying attention or nurturing her surroundings. The odds were against her from the start.
A pity. Even if Caster didn't win, he had at least hoped to have seen or heard the Servant's last moments. Or witness whatever juvenile attempt at a last laugh she had fabricated beforehand.
Oh well. He had no right to complain or expect anything to begin with. He had died and been brought back twice over already from these silly lies with the mask of wars, albeit unintentionally.
"Heh. Well played, both of you." His skin was burning and peeling off at an absurd rate. The pain was outstanding, and probably would have been more so if he had been alive to begin with. "Shame I won't find my… answer… here."
No one had heard the priests' last words. They were all too busy with their own problems to listen to the words of a dead man.
o. o. o.
It had been easy.
It had been far too easy.
EMIYA cussed in five different languages for thinking those jinxed words earlier.
Assassin had been many things. A trap expert. A sniper. A Servant that couldn't go anywhere without blowing something up to kingdom come.
But he wasn't a combatant. And that went double so when the battleground was a wide open area.
It was a horribly mismatched setup from the start.
Assassin had more than enough time to set up traps. To prepare key positions. To plan ahead.
Against Archer, who knew what he was up against this time, he might as well have gone in without doing anything. The results would have been the same.
Long ranged battle was Archer's specialty. Picking out small and difficult to hit targets was Archer's specialty. Using a wide, open field was Archer's, and Rider's, specialty.
True, Assassin had a bit of a boost so long as no one could find him, and at the beginning he did set up traps around Rider's sigils, but once those advantages were gone, he was little more than a fast moving duck.
It was genuinely embarrassing. They had all had so much trouble with Assassin for all this time, and yet he was just so weak when out of his element it was almost laughable.
The "fight" between Archer and Assassin, if one could even call it that, mainly consisted of Assassin hiding inside one building or another and trying to stay out of Archer's sights while the latter fired a never ending rain of overcharged arrows in his general area. For every shot or two the elder Emiya fired off, the younger one returned five times as much at bare minimum.
Reinforcement. Time alteration. It didn't matter. Assassin was slightly above average in terms of speed to begin with, was still slower than Lancer and Rider when he pushed himself to the max, and neither of the latter would have been able to escape Archer's eyes in this scenario. In this setup it was next to impossible for him to lose Archer long enough to get a bead on Caster or the Masters with her.
As far as Servants went, Assassin's performance was utterly pathetic.
Then again, it made sense. The battle was not confined this time. There was no forest. The Masters weren't too close by. There was too much space covered for conventional traps. It was a setup that went against everything Assassin was designed for. Under most circumstances, anyone using him would absolutely avoid this scenario whenever possible. Much less against the one Servant that can exploit it to its full potential.
And then Rider was pulled away from the fight.
Archer felt her vanish, but didn't turn away. He wasn't some novice that flinched at everything that set his senses off, and turning away would open everyone up for an easy shot. He trusted Caster enough to deal with any particular surprise, or at least warn him if something was coming his way.
Almost immediately afterwards though came the familiar white light of Rider's Pegasus, complete with streaking across the sky, absurd levels of power, and the very warranted chill down his spine.
He had wasted no time backing away so that Assassin couldn't get a shot on him, materializing a twisted Caladbolg, and yelling at Caster to protect the girls from any attacks from Assassin. As useful and skilled as she was, the Princess was absolutely useless against something as powerful as Rider's mount without her dragon.
However, instead of the white comet heading for them, he was caught flat footed when Rider dive-bombed the area in front of the temple, colliding with a very familiar golden light.
"Tch." He clicked his tongue in annoyance as he pieced together what was happening and jumped forward again in an attempt to try and find his target, who had no doubt moved since he retreated out of sight. "Caster! I lost Assassin!"
No sooner had the words escaped his lips had two things happened simultaneously.
The first, and more obvious was that the top floors of the building that Archer had been on had exploded magnificently. The bombs used were so overcharged with prana that the roofing beneath his feet more disintegrated than shattered.
The second was a bullet, broken and temporally enhanced, being fired from a building next to the one that had just exploded, at an angle that would pierce through both Luvia and Illya. It didn't matter if it was a graze or not. At that velocity, power, and rotational speed, even the slightest brush of the bullet could mangle their bodies permanently, if not kill them.
Fortunately for them, Luvia had already been in the process of setting up another layer of prana saturated gems around them by the time the shot was fired. As a merc for the majority of her life, there were exceptionally few things that could set off one's paranoia and instincts more than being informed that the enemy's killing specialist was on the loose nearby unsupervised.
The bounded field that the Finnish girl set up hastily was no Noble Phantasm, but it had an absurd amount of power backing it up to offset that particular deficiency. That wasn't to say that it worked perfectly, as the bullet hammered into the shield so hard that half of the gems that made the barrier shattered on impact. It probably would have lasted long enough to hold out, but the second bullet that was fired three seconds later utterly decimated the remains. Thankfully, the girls had managed to barely get out of the way in the time they earned.
Assassin on the other hand, was unable to fire off another shot due to copious quantities of fire that had blocked his view of any potential targets, courtesy of Caster, eviscerating the floor he was on.
"Keep him in one building!" Caster ordered as she spread out her summons to surround and keep track of the enemy.
"Tch." Archer grimaced as he managed to finally get out of the smoke and flames that had nearly consumed him, landing nearby Caster, but not stopping and instead jumping to the next high-rise to encircle the area that Assassin was in.
Trace. On.
It was a rather cheap trick he had learned over the countless years of being a Counter Guardian, although it didn't always particularly work depending on what he was fighting against.
A blueprint of the building instantly popped into his head. Building outline. Integrity. Powerlines. Outputs. Generators. Plumbing. Internal systems…
Deeper.
… Faults. Damage. Debris. History…
Deeper.
… Stress. Inconsistencies. Irregularities. Sudden and recent changes in pressure, weight distribution…
"There." His cold eyes narrowed as he aimed at the top floor of the building, two windows from the far right edge and three cubicles back in the office. Had Assassin had a higher level of Presence Concealment, Archer probably wouldn't have been able to pick up the barest traces of influence that the Servant had left behind while moving through it.
Despite being able to move without making the slightest sound, Kiritsugu was still unable to distribute his weight to the unnatural levels of the namesake of the Assassin class. The slight additional change in force on the floor beneath him was akin to a foghorn to his son.
Whether it was due to experience, or the bloodlust that Archer emitted just before the shot, Assassin found out that he had been pegged just soon enough to get out of the way of getting destroyed along with the office supplies that he had been hiding amongst.
Unfortunately for him, the projectile that Archer had fired had been the twisted Caladbolg that had originally been meant to counter Rider's Pegasus had it come their way.
The arrow had not been broken or overcharged with prana. There had been no time for that. But the raw innate power that belonged to "Caladbolg" the Noble Phantasm was still very much there. A direct hit from it would kill Assassin without question, but a near miss could be just as damaging.
The entire flooring around Assassin had contorted and sunk as if the maw of a tremendous beast had suddenly opened and inhaled everything above it. The drilling projectile had created a vacuum that had sucked in not only Assassin, but all the office supplies, equipment, and furniture there as well, pulling them all into the fires of the floor below that Caster had started earlier, giving the new hole the appearance of a gate to hell.
"Tch." Archer clicked his tongue in annoyance. He had missed, but even he didn't know if it had been on purpose or not.
Before he could proceed to look for his target though, two things had happened that almost completely wiped the thoughts of Assassin from his mind.
The first was a sickeningly sweet sensation crawling up his spine. If the scent of decaying bodies and corrosion could be converted into a tangible sensation, this would have been his closest analogy.
The second came almost instantly after, in the form of Sakura screaming her throat bloody.
He whipped his head around instantly to the source and allowed himself to swear.
Three rooftops away, Sakura was grabbing her head as if it was being assaulted, and her entire frame was emitting an ominous black aura that made her appear as though her outline was barely plugging a hole to an ocean of the substance.
Her bull thrashed about wildly, knowing that something was wrong, but despite being a monstrous beast that was ranked on par with a Noble Phantasm, it was not able to throw off the girl for some absurd reason.
"Sakura!" Luvia tried to steady her own mount as it ran away from her ally. She was barely able to keep it on the same rooftop. "What's happening?!"
"She's losing control of her connection to the Grail for some reason!" Illya was on the other side of the building and having a much harder time controlling her mount than the blonde.
"Rin! Something's wrong! Sakura's losing control over herself!" the Servant frantically updated his Master on the situation. Normally he wasn't this excited in chaotic situations like this, but normally he didn't deal with allies channeling ancient gods of evil spontaneously in the middle of battle.
"Archer?" The reply he got back was confused and distracted, as though she was focusing on something else right now. "But… no! I don't have time to explain! Blame Caster and keep Sakura alive!"
'Blame Caster,' she said. That alone fired several alarms in his mind. Had the Witch managed to tap into the Greater Grail? Had she somehow managed to figure out how to manipulate Angra Mainyuu?
It didn't matter. Whatever it was, the problem was liable to go away once Caster was dealt with, or shortly afterwards.
"AAAAAAAAAAAAH!" The girl's bloody cry was horrifyingly in tandem with the one the bull was making just below her. The black, mud-like aura covering it like a corrupted blanket, smothering the flames that it was jettisoning from its orifices on reflex.
The real question was, could Sakura last long enough?
The sound of a pair of hands clapping together snapped him out of his stupor.
"I have him."
The Princess had both of her hands together as if praying, and her eyes were focused on the building that Assassin was in. On top of all of the rooftops around the target, her bulls were situated, all glowing with an aura that almost resembled plasma.
It was only then that Archer noticed the peculiar feeling in the air, as though he was in a sauna. The smoke from the destroyed buildings nearby had masked the sensation, but it was only now that he realized that the source stemmed from thaumaturgy and not from rampant flames.
"A bounded field…" The bulls were the perimeter, the source of the mystery, and the enforcement. Caster's words merely forced the world to go with the outline already established.
Fast.
It was terrifyingly fast how she had set up such a tremendous and powerful bounded field so quickly without him noticing. Archer didn't need to look to know that the woman's territory encompassed the entirety of the building all the way to the ground floor. He had encountered many oddities and monsters in his time, but he had never faced anyone that was capable of doing something on this large a scale on the fly.
Origin rounds wouldn't work. The power source for either Caster's magic didn't flow through circuits, but through the world itself. The thaumaturgy that Assassin had on hand was incomparable to what Caster utilized. Forcing himself through might have worked if he wasn't literally one of the weakest Heroic Spirits. And as for dealing with the source…
Before Archer or Caster could react, an enhanced bullet violated the space between a muzzle and the Princess, travelling the distance between the two in what seemed like an instant… no.
That wasn't entirely true. The distance wasn't covered entirely. In the final few meters to Caster, the bullet was restrained and incinerated into less than slag by invisible forces, slowing down just enough for the two to notice that it had existed in the first place before vanishing like a dying ember.
Archer had been surprised by the display. Caster had not.
"Help her. I have things covered here." The woman didn't bother looking at him, preferring to focus on her new temporary project.
His eyes lingered on the woman for another second, his expression unreadable, and then he was off.
"Can't you do anything?" Luvia yelled to Illya. "You're both Grails!"
"Don't compare us to one another! I was refined from birth to be one! Sakura was a half assed experiment made by Zouken with partial knowledge on the system! I barely know where to begin to look for what's causing this, and even then I doubt I'm able to do anything about it in time!" Illya shouted back.
It was a miracle that the two girls had managed to stay on the same rooftop as Sakura. Their respective bulls were, to put it lightly, scared shitless of their comrade and were extremely reluctant to be anywhere near the ebony chaos that was slowly spewing from her.
Archer landed right next to Illya, shocking her by his unexpected appearance.
"Shi-Archer!" The girl caught herself. As much as she wanted to, she knew that there was a time and place for calling him certain names.
"Anything in particular I should worry about?" he demanded evenly, as if there was no relationship between them.
She paused for a moment to regain her bearings. "I… no. She suddenly lost control over herself and has been like this since. Our bulls ran away from her almost immediately, but her powers crippled the one she was on…"
Thump. Said bull just collapsed, its heavy body shaking the floor beneath them. No one bothered to ask if it was dead.
"… Killed the one she was on," Illya corrected herself, watching with morbid fascination as the creature's body was falling apart right in front of them.
"Lovely." Archer grimaced, taking a step forward even though every nerve and instinct in his body screamed at him to do the opposite. As of that moment, Sakura was essentially the consumer of Servants and Heroic Spirits. The black miasma she emitted was lethal to his kind. A single brush against it could kill even the mightiest of heroes with ease save for a select few.
Thankfully, or not, he wasn't a genuine Heroic Spirit.
"Sakura! Can you hear me?!" he shouted as he got closer. If this worked from a distance, it would be ideal, but then again his luck never held out the way he wanted.
All it would take is one shot. Quick. Clean. Painless. She wouldn't feel a thing.
I don't want you to forget anymore.
His teeth clenched in annoyance.
"It. Hurts," Sakura gasped out, sinking to the ground as what remained of the bull under her deteriorated. "It hurts. So empty."
Good news was that she was still lucid. Bad news was that as she spoke, ominous red and black ribbons started to snake out from the cloud of corrupted power she was emitting.
Without even thinking, he manifested a copy of Rule Breaker in his right hand and tossed it right in front of her. "Sakura! Use the dagger! It should negate what's happening to you!"
"Dagger?" Her head swayed as though she was drunk, eyes blurry from the pain, it should be considered a miracle that she noticed the Noble Phantasm skid to a stop in front of her. "Oh. This. I remember. Shirou said…"
Barely able to pick up the multicolored weapon, the girl stared at it as if she had never seen anything like it before. Then, with one hand, she sloppily brought it down on one of her thighs.
The results were instant. The cloud dispersed and dissipated around her. Everyone let out a sigh of relief as the oppressive aura that had been suffocating them had lightened up…
"Did you really assume it would be that easy?"
… Only to return in full force, as strong as it had been just moments before.
"AAAAAAAAAAAAAAH!" Sakura hunched over, her body reeling as though she had just been sucker punched.
"Caster!" Archer snarled angrily.
"Don't be so put out Archer. With the sample of Avenger I have in my possession, I could have done much more to the girl," the smug witch purred. "I could have made it so that I would drain the power that's already accumulated in her. Or, even better, I could pour all of what I've gathered into her and let her go out of control. Wouldn't that be interesting to watch?"
He didn't bother to grace her with a reply. His attention and his senses were instead occupied once more by Sakura, who seemed to be in less control over herself than before.
Just one shot and it will all be over.
"It hurts! Shirou! It hurts! Make it stop!" the girl pleaded, crawling up into a ball in a vain and childish attempt to relieve the pain
"Think. Think you idiot. You're the only one that can do something now. Use that conniving head of yours that everyone is afraid of for something productive for once." Desperation, a rare emotion skittered across his nerves as he went over his options.
The whole mess would be over when they killed the Witch, but he didn't know how long that would take and how much longer Sakura could last. Even then, there was a good chance that things could get worse before they were better.
He wasn't a Caster. He couldn't set up a bounded field that could somehow prevent the Witch's spell from reenacting again. Lancer might have been able to do something with his runes, but he wasn't on their side sadly, and their Princess was preoccupied with Assassin. He didn't have any Noble Phantasms that could help either, or rather, he didn't know if he had any until he knew just how the hell Sakura was being cursed. Rule Breaker, the normal go-to solution, was only a temporary fix in this case. The moment Sakura stabbed herself to relieve the issue, the Witch would simply just…!
"Stupid." He cursed at himself for missing an obvious solution. "Sakura! Stab yourself again!"
"What the hell is that supposed to do?! That's barely a temporary solution!" Luvia shouted at Archer.
"Shirou?" The cursed girl was so weak that she had trouble speaking loud enough to be heard.
"Just do it!" he snapped. "It'll work! Trust me!"
'Trust me' he said. Those two words were ironic on far too many levels for those listening save the one he was addressing. It was almost insulting.
And yet they got through to her. Her hands shaking uncontrollably, Sakura somehow managed to grab hold of the dagger she had dropped earlier and managed to push the tip into her leg once more.
The instant the darkness was gone, Archer was right next to her, holding the girl's hand on the dagger and keeping it embedded in her leg.
There was a brief flicker moments later. As though the girl had pulsed a purely rancid power…
But it was simply that. A flicker. A brief instant and nothing more.
He let out a slow sigh of relief. It had been a gamble, but his guess had been right.
"What?!" It appeared as though the Witch was as surprised as Illya and Luvia. "What did you do? Answer me, Archer!"
He didn't bother answering her, keeping his focus on Sakura and the dagger still embedded in her body.
Rule Breaker. Such an absurdly lopsided Noble Phantasm. Its passive ability to cancel out mysteries was truly a miracle in itself. A single stab of it could nullify even the contract between Master and Servant…
… And remaining in contact with the blade could render the "victim" completely immune to nearly any and all curses that was imposed on it.
Of course, doing so nullified the enchantments that the Princess had cast earlier, rendering her subtle to Rider's eyes and Bloodfort Andromeda, AND Sakura now had to always keep hold of or be stabbed by the tip of the weapon to ensure her safety, but sacrifices had to be made. Bottom line was she had to be more careful for the rest of the night while making sure to be always stabbed by a dagger.
It sounded bad when he thought about it, but she should be able to manage. Hell, thinking back on it, that scenario doesn't even break his top thirty worst.
Then again, a good portion of that list involved Primate Murder and or ORT.
"Oi. Sakura. Are you with me? Speak up." Archer gently patted the girl's back to bring her back to reality.
"Ngh." She swayed about in a daze, focusing more on her breathing than most people should. "I… might. My body still hurts and my circuits are worse. What…?"
"Just do what everyone else does if something goes bad tonight. Blame Caster," he answered honestly, keeping the dagger stable and in her leg. "She's manipulating you via the Grail. Keep yourself stabbed. Rule Breaker will take care of the rest."
"… Ngh? Again using my tools! How insulting can you be?!"Caster was no doubt frustrated in the fact that her own dagger was being used against her. More than that, even she probably did not think that her tactics could be countered in such a way. "Fine! The girl was going to die regardless!"
A black and gassy miasma that, while nowhere near as ominous as the substance that came from Sakura, was still very concerning began to materialize into existence on virtually every rooftop in the area. It was as if the vents and exhaust themselves had all turned on to exhume as much of the unnatural compound as possible.
Skeletons began to manifest. Each with tools that were paltry compared to what Archer had in stock, but in numbers that could not be ignored.
Or rather, they should not have been ignored, but were regardless as a newer model of warriors towered above its rank and file brethren.
A dragon? An experiment? Or were they memories that were so degraded in time that the blueprint they were based off of were as tarnished as their resulting image?
Standing at well over eight meters, the monstrosities towered over everyone and everything there. They were made of the same corrupted bones as their lesser kind, albeit a bit thicker, and possessed no flesh as well…
But their upper bodies was some amalgamation of human and dragonic skeletons. Arms that devolved into claws. Jaws that devolved into fangs. Mismatched ribs and shoulders that did not appear right on either frame. Their entire setup was simply wrong, and yet it worked thanks to the ancient mysteries that animated them without fail.
"Do not assume I spent all my time pandering at failed schemes and mysteries. I have more power at my disposal than all of you worms combined!"
"Of course she does." Archer sighed, eyes darting left and right wildly. "Luvia! Illya!"
"Take care of the big ones!" Illya frowned as she pulled four silver hairs from her head with both hands and flicked them out in one practiced motion. Instantly, four small blue birds composed of glowing wires hovered about her, shooting tiny bolts of prana at any and every skeleton that got within range, oneshotting each and every target.
"These cheap toys are not worth fretting over!" Luvia agreed from the other side of the building. Unlike Illya, she had decided to go on the offensive, urging her bull into the fray while firing off Fin curses rapidly. The few arrows shot at her from the golems that managed to survive were easily repelled by the gem powered bounded field around her.
Archer repressed a sigh as he looked around warily. Individually, Luvia was right. The golems were worthless things. Even a talentless Shirou Emiya was able to trounce them one on one with some effort. To those with actual experience, even a hundred of them would cause no issue in terms of power and ability.
It was the numbers and positioning that had him annoyed. These toys were too easy and cheap to manufacture. An unending army. Caster had turned the battle into one of attrition, something that she would eventually win.
"I don't suppose you are able to fight back with the dagger in you." He glanced down at Sakura with an unreadable gaze as his bow materialized in his off hand. From what everyone's claimed, the girl was probably capable of wiping out these things faster than he was. More importantly though…