Disclaimer: I don't own Harry Potter or Fate/Extra. Harry Potter belongs to J. K. Rowling and the Fate franchise belongs to Type-Moon.
Week 1, Day 2
When Harry started the long process of waking up the following morning, he immediately became aware of the comforting warmth right next to him. Not really wanting to get up just yet, the eight-year-old instead snuggled against the warmth, absently noticing the pleasant forest-like smell that drifted into his nose. It was only when another slight movement of his head left his ear resting on top of a steadily beating heart that he actually started to move, albeit somewhat reluctantly. Stretching a little to work out some of the kinks in his body caused by his recent sleep, the young Potter finally opened his eyes and saw the blurry form of his Servant lying next to him.
"Good morning, Archer," the black-haired boy mumbled in between yawns. When he didn't get any response, he took a closer look at her and saw that she appeared to be fast asleep. Trying his best to not disturb her, Harry awkwardly wriggled out from under the bow-wielding woman's arms that had been gently wrapped around him and tried to remember where he had left his glasses, not noticing her eyelids flutter as his movements woke her up.
"Good morning, Master. Did you sleep well?" she asked, sounding surprisingly alert for someone who had only been awake for a few seconds. The Servant then stretched slightly in a manner that reminded Harry of Mrs Figg's numerous cats and passed him the spectacles she had left on the bedside table the previous evening.
"Yeah, it's a bit weird having such a comfy bed though," Harry admitted as he slipped his glasses on. Now that he could see properly, he started going through the usual morning stuff like going to the toilet and having a wash while Archer stayed sitting on the bed in thought. Once he was finished, he headed over to the door with the intention of going to the commissary for a slightly late breakfast, since the bow-wielding woman had explained in the Arena yesterday that defeating enemy programs yielded a monetary reward that could be used to buy food and other supplies, only for the Servant to speak up and get his attention.
"Master, there's something I'd like to talk to you about before we go."
"What is it?"
"While I was fighting in the Arena yesterday, I realised that I can't access my full power. I think my Class Skills and Personal Skills are as they should be but my basic parameters seem to have been lowered for some reason," the Servant of the bow explained. She had figured out during the night that the most likely reason for the reduction in her abilities was her Master's lack of skill as a magus, since the only time she had seen him demonstrate any sort of magical ability had been against the Crix and that had clearly been instinctive and uncontrolled, which confused her since thaumaturgy was something that required study and practise. Still, she wasn't going to share her suspicions as doing so wouldn't fix the problem and her Master would probably start blaming himself if he knew.
"That wasn't your full power?" Harry asked in surprise. He thought that she was really strong already so finding out that he had only seen a fraction of her true strength had been very unexpected. "Wait, what are Class Skills, Personal Skills and parameters?" He could make an educated guess based on the terms but he figured it'd be better to ask Archer to be sure, especially since she had made it quite clear already that she didn't mind explaining things to him and she wouldn't berate him for asking questions like the Dursleys would.
"Class Skills are abilities given to all Servants that are summoned into a given Class. Each Class gets different Skills and finding out your opponent's Skills can help narrow down what Class they are, which in turn can help work out who they are. As an Archer, my Class Skills are Independent Action and Magic Resistance. The first one allows me to act on my own even while rejecting the prana you are providing me with whereas the second gives me some protection against thaumaturgy, although my Magic Resistance is pretty low so it can only nullify weak spells." She paused at that point in case her Master had any queries about her explanation but he didn't so she carried on.
"Personal Skills are similar except they relate to the Servant's own abilities and legends rather than their Class and therefore can be even more useful for figuring out a Servant's identity than their Class Skills. The parameters I was referring to are the system's way of quantifying a Servant's basic attributes of strength, endurance, agility, mana and luck. All of these are assigned ranks starting from E and going all the way up to A, with a few exceptions here and there. The higher the rank, the stronger that particular Skill or attribute is so a Servant with A-ranked strength would have a lot more physical power than a Servant with E-ranked strength and so on. I think you can use your terminal to check these but I have no idea how to operate it, sorry."
"I think I understand all of that, thanks," Harry replied slowly as he processed everything Archer had just told him to the best of his abilities. "Maybe Sakura could show me how to use it," he wondered out loud. Seeing as the nurse had been the one to give him the device in the first place, asking her seemed like a good idea. Besides, the only other people he had really talked to here were the girl he had met in the archery range two days ago, who he hadn't seen since, and the creepy Father Kotomine, who he really didn't want to be around unless he had to.
Since he was getting fairly hungry by this point, the green-eyed Potter set off for the commissary after confirming that there was nothing else that Archer wanted to talk to him about. As he still wasn't entirely awake yet, he stumbled a little going down the stairs to the floor below and ended up bumping into someone when he was about to start down the next flight, unable to react in time to his invisible Servant's warning. Fortunately, neither Harry nor the person he had collided with fell down the stairs but the impact did result in the two of them landing on the floor in a heap, which led to the unseen Archer tensing in case the newcomer reacted with hostility.
"I'm sorry," Harry quickly apologised as the pair got back to their feet.
As they did, he had a look at the teen he had collided with and saw that she was another student wearing the same brown uniform that pretty much everybody else had, although her legs were covered by tights rather than socks like most of the other girls he had seen in passing the previous day. She had the same bland genericness that most of the students shared though her long waist-length brown hair and similarly coloured eyes were just about enough to differentiate her from the rest. Despite the lack of any significant distinguishing features, she seemed a bit familiar to the young child though he couldn't quite work out why.
"No, it's my fault. I wasn't looking where I was going." The brunette's response was followed up by a large yawn, making it clear that she had probably only just woken up.
"You're the girl from the nurse's office," Harry suddenly said to himself in realisation. It had taken him a few moments, but he had eventually managed to place the teen as the girl who had been sleeping in the bed next to his own when he had woken up yesterday. "Are you feeling better now?" Archer had said that the student had been sleeping for almost as long as he had, and she was still asleep when he left the nurse's office, so there must have been something wrong with her. It was only after he had asked that Harry realised that he might be coming across as a bit nosy so he apologised again.
"How did you-" the girl started to speak but cut herself off and glanced to one side, her expression suggesting that she was likely listening to her invisible Servant. "Oh, I see," she muttered before turning back to Harry. "I'm fine now. I was just recovering from an injury," she replied as she unconsciously rubbed her chest right where her heart was, not too bothered by the question since the boy in front of her was clearly just curious and didn't seem to have any malicious reason for asking.
Before either of them could say anything else, the two Masters' stomachs grumbled loudly in perfect synchronicity. This resulted in both of them blushing a bit in embarrassment and agreeing that any further conversation could wait until they had gotten their respective meals.
It only took a few minutes for the pair to get down to the commissary and acquire their food, most of which was spent queuing behind a particularly indecisive student who kept changing his mind again and again until the clerk got fed up and sent him away, and the brunette opted to sit at the same table as Harry. It was a rather odd experience for the glasses-wearing Potter, since Dudley and his gang's bullying generally stopped the other kids at his school from wanting to be friends with him so someone voluntarily sitting with him to eat was something completely new but certainly not unwelcome.
"Are you sure you don't mind me sitting here?" the teen in brown asked when she caught him glancing up at her, the boy still a bit surprised that she had wanted to join him in the first place.
"It's fine. I'm just not really used to people wanting to sit with me," Harry reluctantly admitted. He figured he should give some sort of explanation since she had noticed his action and the truth was probably the best option. He could have sworn that Archer grumbled something to herself next to him but he dismissed it as irrelevant when she fell silent again after few seconds.
"I'm Hakuno, by the way. Hakuno Kishinami," the older girl said by way of introduction when she realised that neither of them had actually given their names yet. She chose not to respond to the child's other comment since she didn't want to pry and most of the other people she had talked to the previous day hadn't been interested in revealing anything about themselves other than maybe their name if she was lucky.
"Harry Potter."
Once the introductions were done, the two of them didn't really talk much while they ate; Harry had no idea what teenagers talked about in the first place so he didn't know what sort of topics he should bring up and was thus waiting for Hakuno to start while the teen in question just assumed that he didn't want to talk and stayed quiet. In the end, Harry was the one who broke first from the lack of conversation and asked the first thing that came to mind.
"Why did you enter the Holy Grail War?" The idea of people willingly getting involved in something that forced them to kill others in order to simply survive was something the green-eyed orphan was having a bit of trouble getting his head around and he hadn't had the opportunity yet to find out why people were risking their lives like this.
Unexpectedly, instead of replying or even refusing to reply, Hakuno froze momentarily at the question, her food stopping barely an inch from her mouth. It only took a second for the brunette to recover from her surprise and answer but her response wasn't something that he had expected. "I don't know." Seeing that she was about to be questioned again, she placed her food back on her plate and elaborated. "Something went wrong and I didn't get my memories back after the preliminaries. I don't remember anything about myself apart from my name and there doesn't seem to be anything I can do to fix it so I have no idea why I came here in the first place." Her voice took on a melancholic tone as she spoke which made Harry feel bad for asking.
"I'm sorry," the eight-year-old mumbled apologetically. Even though he himself didn't know exactly how he had ended up in this school, he could still remember his past, however unpleasant it may have been, and he couldn't imagine how Hakuno must be feeling.
"It's alright. You didn't know and you're not the first person to accidentally bring it up," Hakuno replied, thinking back to a conversation she had had on the rooftop the previous day. "What about you?"
"I didn't enter, or at least I don't think I did. I remember falling asleep and then the next thing I know, I'm waking up in the grass near the archery range. I didn't know anything about what was going on until it got explained to me and I still don't understand everything," Harry replied as he finished the last of his breakfast.
"I guess we're in the same boat then," Hakuno remarked as she finished her food barely a few seconds later. "At least we were both lucky enough to find someone willing to explain things or we'd be even more lost than we are."
"Yeah, Ar-err my Servant was really helpful," Harry said, quickly cutting himself off before he could reveal Archer's Class. While he still didn't fully understand it yet, the cat-eared young woman had told him of the importance of information in the Holy Grail War so he was trying to not give anything away. "The priest is really creepy though," he added as an afterthought.
"Yeah, he is. Still, at least he's helpful. He said he'd track down my first opponent sometime today because of some system error or something."
"I got a message on this yesterday saying that the match-ups were listed on the noticeboard on the second floor," the black-haired boy said, pulling his terminal out of his pocket as he spoke while wondering what the brunette meant by a 'system error'. "I need to ask Sakura if she'll show me how to use it," he mumbled to himself in an attempt to avoid forgetting as the mention of opponents and the subsequent train of thought reminded him of his earlier intention.
"I can show you if you want," Hakuno offered. The boy's muttering had clearly been him making a mental note but she had easily overheard it due to their close proximity and decided that she might as well help him out a bit. "I fiddled around with mine last night and I think I've got it more or less figured out."
Despite being surprised by the offer, Harry quickly agreed and the brunette proceeded to give him a simple overview of how to operate the odd little device, including the very useful option of setting a password on it to prevent other people from using it. It was actually easier than he had been expecting and he thought that, if it wasn't such an unfamiliar piece of technology, he might have been able to work it out himself with a bit of experimentation. Hakuno even told him how to look up information on Servants, though she didn't actually demonstrate this to avoid revealing anything about her own, and Archer suggested that he have a look once he was back in his private room so they could see the extent of her parameter reductions.
Once the young Potter had a decent enough understanding of how to use the terminal, the pair of Masters ended up chatting for a little while longer, though topics were somewhat limited due to a combination of Hakuno's amnesia and Harry's general lack of experiences while growing up. It was almost an hour later, by which time the commissary had become noticeably emptier, that their friendly conversation was cut short when Hakuno's terminal beeped.
"Are you okay?" Harry asked when the teen's expression immediately became one of nervousness upon looking at the screen.
"My opponent has been announced," she muttered.
"Oh." Hearing that, Hakuno's sudden mood change made perfect sense. Knowing that Masters were expected to kill each other to live was one thing but knowing who it was that they'd have to fight to the death with in less than a week made the whole thing much more real. It was only because of Archer's reassuring presence, coupled with him doing his absolute best to not think about it, that Harry was coping with his situation as well as he was.
"I guess I should get this over with," Hakuno mumbled as she stood up. "I'll see you around." With that, the brunette headed out of the commissary, leaving Harry alone with his invisible Servant at their table.
"I hope she's okay," Harry said, more to himself than anyone else. He had enjoyed his conversation with the amnesiac teen and, while he wasn't sure if they could really be considered friends after only an hour or so of interaction, he didn't like the idea of people he knew being unhappy.
"She should be fine," Archer replied. The Servant of the bow had spent most of the time in the commissary observing the older Master in case she had an ulterior motive but she hadn't been able to pick up even a hint of hostility in the amnesiac girl and thus had no problems with her Master socialising with her.
Since there was no longer any reason for him to stay in the commissary, the glasses-wearing orphan decided that he and Archer might as well head back to his private room so that they could have a proper look at her stats on the terminal. Or rather, they were going to do that until Harry caught sight of some random Master leaving the counter with a few crystals like the one he had found in the Arena the previous day and he was reminded of the clerk mentioning that she sold things other than food. With his curiosity getting the better of him, he went over to see what there was, something Archer approved of since knowing could only be beneficial to them.
He couldn't spare too much money since he had to set aside enough to cover meals but, after a couple of minutes of talking it over with his Servant, he ended up getting another Ether Shard and a cylindrical Return Crystal, the latter of which apparently allowed a Master to instantly leave the Arena and return to the school's campus regardless of how far away they were from the exit. Archer had been a little unhappy about the Return Crystal, as using it would require her young Master to actually be inside the Arena in the first place, but she had eventually conceded since it wasn't too expensive and trying to convince him to stay in the safety of his private room while she fought in the Arena wasn't something that should be done in public if she didn't want him to draw unnecessary attention.
With their shopping done, the Master and Servant pair opted to retire to their private room in classroom 3-C, this time with no distractions delaying them.
Upon returning to his private room, Harry sat down on his bed, pulled out his terminal and navigated through the menus like Hakuno had shown him until he found the bit that showed Servant information. Like the brunette had said it might be, Archer's profile was incomplete and only showed her basic parameters, which were all listed as E-ranked, and her two Class Skills, A-ranked Independent Action and D-ranked Magic Resistance, both of which were accompanied by a brief description. The rest of it was rather empty and Harry would have probably been worried that something was wrong if Hakuno hadn't told him that the terminal only seemed to show information that its owner had already found out, meaning that the reason for the numerous question marks was simply because Harry had no idea what data those particular sections might contain.
"I thought that they were lower than they should be, but I didn't think they'd be that low," Archer muttered to herself as she sat down next to her Master and looked at the screen over his shoulder. "Don't worry, Master. Even if I am weaker than I should be, I promise that I'll protect you," she declared, not wanting him to be disheartened by the drop in her stats.
"Harry," the boy mumbled after a few moments.
"Hmm?" The Servant of the bow was caught off guard by the apparent non sequitur and was about to question it when he carried on.
"Could you call me Harry instead of Master?" He hadn't really paid much attention to it the previous day but, thinking back, the young orphan realised that Archer had never actually addressed him by name. He didn't know if it was just her preference or if there was some Servant rule that meant that she had to call him that since it was technically his role, even though he was probably the most useless Master ever, but it was making him a little uncomfortable now that he had noticed it as it reminded him of his time with the Dursleys. None of his relatives ever really used his name, Uncle Vernon seemed to be particularly fond of just calling him Boy whenever he talked to him, and the lack of familiarity just seemed to emphasise the fact that they didn't want him.
"Very well, Harry," Archer replied to her Master's hesitant question with a friendly smile. "I suppose I probably should have asked what form of address you preferred after our contract was established and I'm sorry if I was making you unhappy. If there is anything else you want, you need only to ask."
"No, that was it." The eight-year-old couldn't think of anything else right then, since the only other thing he wanted was to get out of this Holy Grail War immediately and that was impossible, but he might not have asked even if he did have other requests as the Servant already had to kill others for him and he didn't want to bother her with anything else.
"If you're sure..." Archer trailed off. She could tell that the child next to her seemed reluctant to ask for things, the tone he had used when requesting for her to call him by name suggested that he wasn't expecting the question to actually accomplish anything, and she could make a reasonable assumption as to why based on what little she knew of his past. The problem was that she didn't have any real experience with this sort of thing.
Sure, the huntress had interacted with children on multiple occasions when she was still alive but those were usually more about helping if a child was attacked, rescuing them if they had gotten lost in the forests or other similar things. Never before had she had the opportunity to look after a child who had clearly suffered some sort of emotional damage while growing up and help heal the scars that had been left behind. Ignoring the circumstances that had led to their meeting in the first place and the deadly tournament that they were currently involved in, Archer had to admit that she was looking forward to the time she would be spending with Harry over the coming weeks. The one thing she desired above all else was for all the children of the world to be raised with love and she was more than willing to provide that love for her young Master.
As had happened before, a sudden electronic chiming came from the terminal, pulling Archer from her thoughts and making Harry, who had been reading the description of his Servant's Independent Action, drop the small device in surprise. Fortunately, the impact didn't seem to have caused any damage and the orphan quickly retrieved the object to see why it had made the noise.
"The primary cipher key has been generated," the green-eyed Potter read aloud before turning to the woman next to him who had been reading the message over his shoulder. "What's a primary cipher key?"
"I assume that it's a key of some kind but, other than that, I don't know. It's probably important since you got a notification about it but I don't know all of the specifics of how the Moon Cell is running this Holy Grail War so we're going to have to ask somebody. The priest you talked to yesterday would probably be the best option since he said that everybody has the right to ask about any of the basic rules of the tournament and he wouldn't have any reason to withhold the information from you or lie," Archer replied after a moment's thought.
Since it would be best for them to get answers as soon as possible, the pair headed out of the private room straight away to look for Father Kotomine. After passing a few other Masters talking amongst themselves, which allowed Archer to overhear that the nurse's office was apparently giving out free healing supplies, Harry and his invisible Servant quickly found their target near the stairs on the floor below. The young Potter didn't particularly want to talk to the creepy man after the unnerving conversation they had had the previous day but it was necessary and hopefully wouldn't take too long.
"Greetings, young Master. There are a few things I have to talk to you about before you go to the Arena," Father Kotomine began before Harry could even say a single word to him. "You should have received a notice a few minutes ago that your Primary Trigger has been generated. Two Triggers must be acquired before the end of each week if you intend to participate in the tournament." The man in black didn't seem to notice that the boy in front of him was about to speak and carried on, suggesting that he was either trying to annoy him or just reciting a pre-written speech to anyone that enquired.
"A Trigger, or a cipher key as they are otherwise known, is a key to the coliseum as well as a way to cull weak Masters. All Masters are required to obtain them during the preparation period and any who fail to do so will forfeit by default. The Arena is divided into two floors and one Trigger is generated on each floor. For the sake of convenience, the Triggers are generally referred to as the Primary Trigger and the Secondary Trigger and a notification will be sent to your terminal whenever one generates." When Father Kotomine saw that Harry was about to leave the moment he finished his explanation, he spoke up again to deliver one final piece of information.
"Combat between Masters is prohibited at all times, both in the Arena and on campus. If a fight occurs for whatever reason, the system will shut it down within thirty seconds. In addition, a penalty will be imposed on any Masters caught fighting on campus. That's all I have to say. If you don't have any other queries, I suggest you head down to the Arena to look for your Primary Trigger."
Not having any other questions, Harry took the opportunity to quickly, but politely, leave the creepy priest to his own devices and headed downstairs to see what sort of stuff Sakura was giving out. When he got to the ground floor, the boy stopped momentarily since he could have sworn that he felt somebody staring at him but the odd sensation disappeared as quickly as it had appeared in the first place and he couldn't see anybody looking in his general direction.
"There doesn't appear to be anybody watching you but it would be best to stay alert anyway," Archer told him after asking about his sudden pause. "It's possible that our opponent is observing you to try and gather information or it could be somebody else who is simply intrigued by your young age." She thought that the latter was the main reason for the strange looks her Master had been getting the previous day but it would just be stupid to discount the possibility of enemy action.
Other than that brief incident, nothing happened during the incredibly short walk to the nurse's office and, after knocking on the door in case Sakura was dealing with something that required privacy, Harry found himself being called in by the friendly purple-haired teen. The girl in question was sitting at the table in the middle of the room and seemed to be in the middle of making some sandwiches.
"Hello, Harry. Do you require medical attention or are you just here to collect some healing supplies?" she asked as she walked over to a cupboard and took something out.
"Just the healing stuff," Harry replied. Neither he nor Archer had been sure that what they had overheard was true but the nurse's question pretty much confirmed it for them.
"Here you go, then. Five lots of Ether Powder," Sakura informed the young Master as she passed him five clear vials that were each filled with some sort of crystalline powder. "I know it's not much but it's better than nothing," she said apologetically when she saw Harry examine the items curiously before pocketing them. "Healing items are available for each Master once per round so don't forget to come back again next week."
"I'll try not to," the green-eyed Potter said as he watched the teen return to her chair. Seeing as he didn't have any other business with the AI right then, he left the nurse's office so she could get back to finishing her food in peace. The boy had barely taken three steps from the door when he saw Wei Zhang, the Master who had been assigned as his opponent, walk up the stairs from the commissary and then head straight towards the Arena, the red scarf around his neck making him easily identifiable despite his otherwise very unremarkable appearance.
"It would seem that our enemy has decided to show himself again," Archer spoke up from Harry's side as the pair watched the teen disappear around the corner near the Arena's entrance at the far end of the corridor. She had been a little surprised that they hadn't encountered him during their exploration of the Arena the previous day, though she certainly wasn't complaining given what had happened with just hostile programs, but this was an opportunity that she shouldn't ignore.
"He's probably going to look for the first Trigger now that it's been generated and his Servant will undoubtedly be accompanying him. I'm going to follow them to see if I can learn anything so please go back to your room where you'll be safe," the Servant of the bow requested.
Despite the wording, it was clear to Harry that he was being ordered to return to his private room while Archer went off on her own. He opened his mouth to argue but she cut him off before he could get a single word out.
"This is for your own good and you won't be able to talk me into letting you come this time. An encounter with another Servant will be on a completely different level to the programs from yesterday and I will not allow you to be involved in such danger." Her voice then softened slightly as she carried on. "Besides, I'm only going to be doing a bit of reconnaissance. I have no intention of starting a fight and I should be able to avoid detection as long as I'm careful so don't worry. Just wait for me in your room and I'll be back before you know it."
With that, the glasses-wearing boy felt Archer's presence leave his side and rapidly make its way down the corridor before vanishing completely after a few seconds, which he assumed meant that she had entered the Arena. Now on his own for the first time since he had met the Servant two days ago, Harry suddenly felt quite lonely as he glumly made his way to the stairs. Even though he could understand the woman's reasoning for leaving him behind, he was dead weight to her and he knew it, he didn't necessarily like it.
While he was silently lamenting his uselessness as a Master, Harry idly shoved a hand into his pocket to make sure that his terminal was still there, since he wouldn't be able to get into his private room without it, and stopped in his tracks when his fingers brushed against one of the vials he had gotten from Sakura barely five minutes ago. Pulling it out, he just stared at it for a moment, wondering if there was even any point in him having healing supplies when Archer wasn't allowing him into the Arena where they'd be needed most. If he stayed out like she had told him to then the most he'd be able to do with them would be patching her up after she returned from her information gathering trip.
Clenching the vial in his hand, Harry made a snap decision and ran down the corridor to the Arena's entrance. Archer was almost certainly going to scold him for it but he didn't want to leave her on her own. If she ended up getting into a fight with his opponent and his Servant then she would be at a disadvantage since the other Master probably had some actual skills that he could use to support his Servant and the reduction in Archer's parameters just made that disadvantage worse. Even if it wasn't much, the Ether Powder Sakura had given him and the Ether Shards he had acquired before those meant that he could actually help Archer like a Master was supposed to and he didn't want to be a burden to her when she was fighting in this tournament to keep him alive.
Even though he entered the Arena only a couple of minutes after Archer did, Harry couldn't see any sign of his Servant near the entrance. Fortunately, as he was now inside with her, the young Master could just about sense her presence through the link they shared so he started moving in that direction. She was surprisingly far away considering how little time she had been there and the green-eyed orphan thought that it would take him a while to catch up to her until he felt her suddenly stop and then hurry towards him.
After a few moments, Harry caught sight of the bow-wielding woman's blurry form through the translucent walls of the Arena as she ran at an incredible speed and it only took another second for her to skid around the corner in front of him. For an instant, Archer just stared at him, her face a strange mix of worry and displeasure, before her eyes abruptly narrowed and her bow materialised into existence in her hand.
"Get down!" Archer yelled as she drew back an arrow that started to shine due to the prana being channelled into it.
Without even thinking, Harry dropped to the ground in response to the command as the glowing projectile shot through the air and struck something right behind him. At the sound of the impact, he clumsily spun around just in time to see the shattered remains of a Klein disperse into nothingness. Realising how close he had just come to dying, the boy turned back to face the woman who had saved his life yet again and saw her crouching down on the floor next to him with an unreadable expression on her face.
"What are you doing here, Master? I believe I told you to wait for me in your private room."
Harry involuntarily flinched at his Servant's tone since it was noticeably lacking in the warmth that he was used to hearing and it was quite obvious that she was very unhappy with his, admittedly reckless, decision to follow her. Still, he believed that he had made the right choice and that conviction had yet to waver, even when faced with an annoyed Archer. "I just wanted to help you."
"While I can't really fault your desire to assist me, running around in the Arena on your own like that is extremely dangerous. If I had been even a few seconds later in getting here, then that program could have easily killed you," the woman lectured, trying to get Harry to realise the seriousness of what he had done so he wouldn't do it again.
"I swore to do everything in my power to protect you when we made our contract and that is why I didn't want you coming in here with me. There is nothing more important to me in this war than your safety and nothing would have been able to harm you if you had stayed in your room like I asked you to." Archer then suddenly glanced over her shoulder and narrowed her eyes. "Do you have nothing better to do with your time than eavesdrop on others?" she growled.
Shifting his gaze to the area that Archer was now watching intently, Harry could make out a pair of blurs through the walls that then walked around the corner and into view after being called out to. One of them was Wei, the Master Harry was supposed to fight, and the other was presumably his Servant. The stranger was fairly short for a grown man, not even five feet tall, and his appearance was surprisingly simple. His short and untidy hair was a medium brown that was only a few shades darker than his somewhat tanned skin. A plain white shirt covered his upper body and a pair of equally plain black trousers covered the lower half, held up by a belt that was so long that it trailed out behind him and came close to reaching the floor.
"You can blame this guy for that," the apparent Servant said, gesturing to the Master next to him. "We were on our way back after getting the Trigger when we heard you and he wanted to see if we could learn anything. Personally, I wanted to just get down to business because the programs here are pathetically weak but Servants are supposed to follow orders," the unidentified Servant casually elaborated with a shrug before turning to address his Master. "I still don't get why you wanted to hang around like that. These two are nothing compared to me and the sooner we leave the Arena, the sooner you can get some sleep. You've been yawning all day and it's starting to get a little irritating."
"So you keep saying," Wei replied, yawning as he did. Now that his Servant had mentioned it, Harry noticed the bags under his eyes that hadn't been there the previous day and that he looked so exhausted that he might collapse at any moment. "Besides, you know full well why I've been up as long as I have so don't complain."
"Yeah, yeah. Is there anything else? I'm getting bored," the Servant complained, idly scratching his ear.
"If it'll shut you up, then fine," Wei sighed, gesturing towards Harry and Archer. He then yawned again as he leant against the wall.
"Fighting is prohibited outside of the coliseum," Archer interjected as she worked out what the other pair were getting at. She wouldn't normally care but she didn't want Harry this close to a confrontation between Servants as she wouldn't be able to guarantee that he wouldn't get caught in the crossfire.
"Are you a pacifist or something? You do know that Servants are supposed to fight in the Holy Grail War, right?" the enemy Servant asked, twirling around a long red staff that hadn't been in his hands a moment ago. Without another word, the short Servant suddenly shot forwards with enough force that his bare feet cracked the ground a little and swung his weapon at Archer's head only for her to push Harry backwards and leap to the side, allowing the staff to strike the ground instead and leave a small crater on impact.
As soon as the enemy Servant launched his attack, the area was bathed in a faint red glow that flashed in a manner reminiscent of a fire alarm. At the same time, both Masters' terminals beeped and displayed a warning to them that unauthorised combat had been detected by the system and would be shut down in thirty seconds.
"Stay back, Harry!" Archer shouted as her bow reappeared in her grip. A trio of arrows flew towards her foe but he deflected one and almost cartwheeled out of the way of the other two.
"So you're an Archer, then?" the staff-wielding Servant remarked upon seeing his opponent's choice of weapon. "Did you have to make it so obvious?"
The female Servant's only reply was to fire off another few arrows which were all either blocked or dodged without too much trouble. She had seen the damage the enemy's staff has caused and it showed that his physical strength was considerably greater than her own. Ideally, she wouldn't fight an opponent like this at such close range, since a few solid hits like that could easily take her out, but she couldn't run off to give herself some more space because that would mean leaving Harry behind and she couldn't carry him because she wouldn't be able to shoot properly like that.
After batting aside yet another arrow, the enemy Servant seemed to get bored of just defending and he shot forward again. He was a little impressed at seeing the woman fire five arrows simultaneously in a wide spread but he just slammed the end of his weapon into the ground and pole-vaulted over the volley. His intended downwards swing was met with three glowing arrows, one of which left a nasty gash across his left bicep while the other two were deflected by his staff. The force of the blocked projectiles proved to be just enough to knock him off course but he simply rolled with the movement and instead swept the Archer's feet out from under her with a low kick the moment he touched the ground.
The cat-eared woman quickly recovered from the unexpected attack and her follow-up shot, packed with prana and fired at point-blank range, embedded itself deep into the knee of the offending leg, going straight through the kneecap and sticking out the other side. Unfortunately for her, the staff-wielder didn't appear to be overly bothered by the injury, despite stumbling momentarily when he tried putting his weight on that limb, as he returned the favour by slamming the end of his weapon into her stomach hard enough to wind her and then lift her up into the air with a flick of his wrist. Unable to effectively manoeuvre in mid-air, she instead tried to block the incoming swing with her bow, as it was more than durable enough to take such punishment. While the defensive action certainly helped to reduce the damage, there was still sufficient force behind the swing that she was thrown backwards and smacked painfully into the wall.
"You're not too bad, you know?" the male Servant remarked as he propelled himself forwards with his good leg and one of his arms. "I'm just better." With that, he tried to end the fight with one final swing but failed when a barrier appeared between them and caused his staff to harmlessly bounce off.
"It looks like our time's up," Wei commented with another yawn from where he was still leaning against the wall. "Let's go back." He then pulled a Return Crystal from his pocket and, with a blinding flash of light, disappeared from the Arena with his Servant.
"Archer!" Harry shouted in concern as he ran over from where he had been watching the entire fight in shock. The bow-wielding woman had been right earlier when she had told him that an encounter with another Servant would be completely different to the fights he had seen previously. The eight-year-old was still trying to comprehend what he had just seen, as the whole thing had only taken thirty seconds from start to finish, but the sight of Archer sitting with her back against the wall, one hand holding her gut in pain while a bit of blood trickled from the corner of her mouth, was far more pressing for him.
"Please be OK," he mumbled as he knelt next to her and pulled an Ether Shard out of his pocket. It was at that point that the glasses-wearing Master realised that he was missing one important piece of information. "How do I use this?" he asked frantically. Archer was clearly in a lot of pain but he had no idea what he was supposed to do to help her. He tried gently pressing the crystal against the Servant's stomach, since that seemed to be the most injured area, but it didn't do anything except elicit a groan of pain from the woman.
"You have to send a bit of prana through it," Archer told him. While she was quite injured from the short scuffle, as she was pretty certain that that last hit had cracked at least three of her ribs and each breath caused a small spike of pain in her chest, she wasn't on death's door like Harry seemed to think. She'd probably be more or less fine after a few hours of rest, though a full night would be much more preferable, but her Master wanted to help her and it would be better for him to learn this sooner rather than later. Besides, if he couldn't activate an Ether Shard, then he wouldn't be able to use his Return Crystal either and she wasn't sure if she was capable of getting out of the Arena and back to Harry's room under her own power in her current state.
When his only response was confusion, the Servant elaborated a bit to try and help him figure it out. Unfortunately, she couldn't just give him instructions on the matter since she wasn't a magus and thus didn't actually understand it properly herself; even though she could use prana to increase the power of her arrows, she was a Servant and they didn't quite function in the same way as living humans. "Prana is the energy that magi use to perform their thaumaturgy. You're constantly sending a small amount of it to me across our link and you would have also used some when you stunned that Crix yesterday."
"Uh, OK," Harry responded uncertainly. He could tell that Archer was trying to assist him as best she could but he would have preferred it if things were a bit clearer and easier to follow.
When it became clear that the injured Servant couldn't provide any more help than that, he closed his eyes and concentrated on what little she had been able to tell him. He had apparently used some of this prana stuff when the Crix had attacked him but he had no idea how he had made that red light as he hadn't been thinking of anything other than desperately wanting to survive the imminent threat of death. Since he didn't have anything else to go on, the eight-year-old tried to reproduce that feeling and somehow direct it to the Ether Shard in his hand.
It took a little while, during which time he heard Archer awkwardly deal with a Klein that had drifted a bit too close, but eventually, after trying to convince himself that a Crix was about to ram its stinger straight through his heart and kill him, Harry felt the piece of crystal heat up a bit before disintegrating. Not sure if he had done what he was intending or if he had just accidentally destroyed the Ether Shard, Harry opened his eyes again and saw Archer looking at him with a proud smile on her face. Since she appeared to be quite happy and was no longer holding her stomach, the young Master assumed that he had indeed managed to heal her properly.
"Well done, Harry," the Servant said as she stood up and stretched a little, wincing imperceptibly as she did. She then saw her Master wobble a bit and gently placed a hand on his shoulder to steady him. "Are you feeling alright? That was quite a large surge of prana you generated when you healed me. If you want, we can call it a day and go back to your room for some rest."
"No, I'm fine," Harry insisted. He was actually feeling slightly light-headed but he assumed that was normal for prana stuff and he didn't want to be the reason for them leaving the Arena. "Anyway, we need to find that Trigger, don't we?" he asked, trying to change the topic. He then stood up so that he could join Archer on her exploration and promptly fell down again when one of his legs buckled.
"The Trigger can wait until tomorrow. You're in no condition to carry on right now so we're leaving," Archer stated, her tone leaving no room for arguments. She then scooped the boy up in her arms, ignoring the minor pain that accompanied the action, and carried him back to the Arena's entrance.
Despite being somewhat unsteady on his feet, it didn't take too long for the Master and Servant duo to return to their private room on the top floor. At Archer's insistence, Harry had gone to see Sakura just to make sure that everything was alright with him and had been told, after a short explanation and examination, that he just needed to get some rest for a few hours as his body simply wasn't used to the strain of handling so much prana in one go. Almost as soon as they had arrived at classroom 3-C, Harry practically collapsed onto the bed from exhaustion after getting something to eat from the small food stash he had started the previous day while Archer leant against the wall next to him.
"What are your thoughts on the enemy?"
"Huh?" The sudden question caught Harry off guard and he had to think for a moment before he had an answer. "He seems really strong," he said, thinking about how easily he had thrown Archer around earlier. "Do you think we can win?" Just as he asked that, Harry realised how his question could be interpreted and he quickly backtracked. "I didn't mean that you're weak or anything. I just-"
"I know you didn't," Archer cut her Master off before he could get too worked up about the accidentally implied insult. "He is certainly a strong Servant to go up against in the first round and trying to beat him in a close-quarters fight probably wouldn't go too well for me but don't worry. We still have four full days before the Elimination Battle so we just need to use that time to try and figure out who he is. Once we know his identity, we should be able to come up with a good strategy for dealing with him. It might be worth visiting the library tomorrow to see if we can find anything there even though we don't have much to go on right now."
"Yeah, all we really know at the moment is what he looks like and that he has a staff," Harry replied, tossing the empty food wrapper in his hand into the nearby bin. Even though the entire point of the trip to the Arena had been to gather information, they hadn't found very much.
"It's better than nothing," Archer interjected. "Based on the skill he showed with that staff and the agility he demonstrated when dodging my arrows, there's a chance that he's a Lancer. He's too sane for a Berserker, he doesn't have the right weapons to be a Saber or an Archer and Casters aren't usually that competent in physical combat. It's possible that he could be a Rider or an Assassin, though. For some reason, I couldn't smell him at all in the Arena and I only knew they were there because I picked up the Master's scent and heard some noises." The fact that the Servant had been able to evade her sharp nose like that had perplexed her once she had realised it but it was unlikely that that piece of information would be all that useful compared to whatever else they could find out.
"We could go to the library now," Harry suggested as he started sitting up. After all, the earlier they started looking, the earlier they'd find something. However, the eight-year-old Master didn't even make it all the way to an upright position because Archer reached over the moment he started moving and gently pushed him back down.
"No, we'll go tomorrow. You need to rest and those books are still going to be there tomorrow. Once we've done a bit of research, we'll go to the Arena to look for that Trigger." When Harry suddenly looked at her in surprise at that last comment, she answered his question before he could ask it. "Yes, I'll let you come with me in the Arena. You'd probably just follow me in again if I told you to stay out and I don't want you in there without me right next to you. However, you're taking a Return Crystal with you and I expect you to use it at the first sign of trouble, understand?"
"Yes, Archer," Harry replied, happy that she was allowing him to accompany her despite being saddened a bit by the disapproval in her voice when she mentioned his earlier recklessness.
Even though it was only just starting to get dark outside, the young Potter was feeling quite tired, likely as a result of him overdoing it with the prana earlier, so he slipped under the duvet and started getting comfortable so he could get some sleep. As he moved about, he noticed some sort of odd pattern of zeroes and ones in the sky through the window but he quickly dismissed it as his eyes playing tricks on him due to his exhaustion. Just as he was about to take his glasses off, Harry caught sight of Archer looking down at her stomach and gently rubbing it with a slight grimace on her face.
"Are you alright?" Harry asked. Based on the action, he assumed that the Servant was still in pain from earlier even though he thought that he had healed her since she hadn't told him otherwise. Worried, he started rummaging around to try and find either the other Ether Shard he had or one of the vials he had gotten from Sakura.
"It's nothing" Archer replied. "The Ether Shard wasn't quite enough to completely heal me due to the extent of my injuries but I'll be fine after a bit of rest so there's no need for you to do anything else." She didn't want her Master to unnecessarily tire himself out even more and the pain had been slowly dying down since they had left the Arena so it really wasn't an issue.
"You should have said something," Harry told her as he shifted to one side and pointed at the now unoccupied half of the bed next to him. "Lie down. It's more comfortable than leaning against a wall."
"Very well," the Servant responded, an amused smile on her face when she realised that that was the first time that he had actually ordered her to do something instead of making a polite request. Since the boy had already lifted the covers for her, Archer allowed her stockings to disappear along with her gloves as she slid in next to him. She then quickly wrapped an arm around her Master before he could even think of giving her the entire bed and sleeping elsewhere.
"Goodnight, Archer," the eight-year-old mumbled with a yawn as the exhaustion of the day finally got the better of him.
"Goodnight, Harry," Archer replied, her words falling on deaf ears since the child had already succumbed to sleep. As she glanced at Harry's sleeping form, she idly wondered what tomorrow would bring.