X. Servants A

Credit where credit was due, Archer was impressed with Rin.

Well impressed was rather extreme, and Archer knew better than to ever say anything like that to her face. Her ego was already exasperatingly large enough as it is, and knowing that her 'troublesome' Servant was actually willing to think positively towards her might be the necessary push for her ego to finally decouple from her body and ascend into a higher form of smug superiority. If Archer had to be more precise about it, satisfied would be a closer approximation of his feelings, though that still wasn't exactly accurate. Contentment maybe?

The Servant ruminated on the topic for a while longer as he followed his Master from out the boundaries of the Church. She didn't so much walk out of the gate as frog marched out of it, the stomping of her feet so vicious and filled with spite that Archer imagined that had her augmentations been active that the concrete would have cracked underneath her fury. Nonetheless he said nothing, knowing that it was simply for the best that Rin walk her frustrations off and allow her to vent instead of pointing it at him thank you very much. He knew better than to interrupt her when she was in this kind of mood after all.

Time passed and eventually both Master and Servant found themselves in a lonely looking park, fluorescent lights dutifully illuminating the surrounding vegetation in their pale glow. Rather than walk past it as one would expect of a teenage girl this late at night, Rin marched straight towards one of the many available stone benches and sat down, prim and proper as one could be. Moments later, the illusion shattered, and she began wailing like a wounded animal.

"Arrrggggghhhharhghargah!" She screamed, her grace and poise vanished like a mirage, her fists beating into her legs like they'd somehow wronged her. "I screwed that up, I definitely screwed that up. What was I thinking? Am I an idiot? Of course, I'm an idiot, idiot, because only an idiot would screw something like that up!"

Archer shook his head, manifesting himself in front of her, his arms folded across his chest. Rin didn't seem to care, only sinking deeper into her little tantrum, her hands reaching for her head in anguish. He sighed, so much for being impressed by her maturity.

"What's the matter, Rin?" he asked, before immediately regretting his words as the teenage girl turned brilliant, rage-filled, eyes onto him.

"What's the matter? What's the matter?" Rin repeated. "Weren't you listening? I screwed that up, I made a fool of myself in front of Emiya, I made a fool of myself in front of that damned priest."

She gasped, and her gaze tunneled straight into the ground as her nails clawed deep into her scalp with all the desperation of one that desperately wished they could be dead instead. "Oh god I did that all in front of Degurechaff didn't I? She's gonna think I'm an idiot, isn't she? All that smiling she was doing earlier? That was definitely her 'god she's an idiot' smile wasn't it?"

As much as Archer was privately enjoying the situation, so long as her frustration wasn't directed towards him in any case, he was fairly certain that if he did nothing now Rin would flagellate herself all the way till morning. That in and of itself had its own amusing appeal, but the risk of an angsty, sleep deprived, Rin choosing to take out her frustrations on him in the aftermath was simply too high. The Servant coughed, redirecting her attention back to him.

"In what way, exactly, did you make a mistake?" Archer asked.

She turned a baleful eye upon him, which he took in good stride. Seeing that her glare wasn't really eliciting the response she wanted, Rin sighed and retreated back into her pity shell. A few moments later, she spoke.

"I didn't need to make that much of a fuss over Emiya being trained by that priest." She mulled dejectedly. "Thinking about it, it's actually an advantage, right? It means that he's a worthwhile asset, with an exemplary Servant, and if you joined forces with Saber that'd probably mean we could win the war together. I didn't need to make that much of a fuss, and especially making such a fuss in front of everyone, with who knows how many people watching. We were outside, there's bound to be familiars watching the church after all."

Archer said nothing, merely allowing his Master to continue voicing out her thoughts. "But instead I let my temper get the better of me, I cussed that priest out, I cussed Emiya out and I left Degurechaff there with them and if Emiya had any functioning brain cells he'd have allied himself with Caster and we're going to lose and it's all my fault and-"

Her words devolved into a disgusted, high pitched scream of self-loathing and Archer sighed. "That's probably not going to happen-"

"Oh? And how would you know." She snorted dismissively, poking her head out of her pity ball to stare at him balefully. Archer smirked in response.

"Well, while all you Masters were getting busy in the Church-"

"Gross."

"Let me finish." He chided, rolling his eyes. "While all of you were talking, Saber, Caster and I were discussing things as well. Saber and Caster don't seem to like each other, I doubt that either of them would consent to an alliance with the other."

For a moment, a glimmer of hope sparkled in the girl's eyes before she ruthlessly squashed it down. "That doesn't mean anything. Their Masters could just decide that it makes the most sense and-"

"Even if they did, it still probably won't happen." Archer stated confidently. "You saw how Degurechaff's Master was, the girl practically worships the air Caster breathes, she's not gonna make a move without her Servant's say so. Emiya might be a more problematic case, but if Saber insists on not forming an alliance with Caster he'd likely go along with it."

Rin was quiet for a moment and Archer turned to check back on her. Gone was the fury and self-deprecation of before, now her eyes glinted with a cold calculation that almost took him aback for a moment. The girl stood up, lightly patting away at her skirt before turning her gaze on him.

"And why didn't you tell me this earlier?" She asked, a glimmer of that imperious attitude taking hold. Archer sighed.

"Because you were busy, and you weren't even talking to me until you barged out of the Church. Also, a little heads up next time? When the day finally comes you suffer a psychotic break and want to pick a fight with two potentially hostile Servants at the same time, I'd at least like some prior notice so I could decide whether to leave you to die or not."

"Hmph. I was not picking a fight, and even if I was I wouldn't have needed you to bail me out. I could have won that all by myself."

"Of course."

Rin seemed to pause for a moment, hand to her chin, a look of deep consideration in her eyes. Archer waited patiently

"So, I didn't mess up." Rin mused quietly to herself, earning an exasperated sigh from her Servant.

"No. No you did not."

"Shush you."

"Hmm."

A few moments later, Rin seemed to have recovered from her little episode. At least as a far as Archer could see, in that she was pacing to and fro, slowly gouging out a ravine unto the stone below.

"If Emiya is connected to that man in any way, I don't want anything to do with him." Rin considered, an oncoming mania manifesting itself in her eyes. "Saber is great and all, but I might vomit if allying with him is exactly what Kotomine would want. Especially if there's a better alternative on hand."

"Degurechaff, you mean?" Archer added. Rin gave a firm nod.

"It all makes sense." She noted, excitement evident in her tone. "She's the greatest strategic mind in the past two hundred years, she turned Germania from a poverty ridden hellhole of a failed nation into a global hegemon. Sure, her parameters aren't that great, but that's beside the point! The fact of the matter is, if we have Tanya von Degurechaff on our side there's no way we can lose. We could probably even have her get some resources from Germania, really rub it in to Kotomine and Emiya's face just what they've done by pissing me off!"

Archer listened quietly to her tirade before speaking again. "I did talk to Degurechaff about that. I don't think she's willing to utilize her country's resources like that."

Rin deflated for a moment, but only for a moment, before bouncing back with remarkable fervor. "Oh it's fine, I'm sure we can work something out." She waved it off. "All the credible resources I've read on the topic notes that Tanya's a remarkably pragmatic woman when push comes to shove. I'm sure we can convince her of the necessity of it once we've secured an alliance."

"If you say so." Archer shrugged, before subsequently smirking at his Master. "And oh? Resources? How remarkable, have you been researching her a lot then Rin?"

"O-o-only as appropriate to neutralize a potential threat." Rin huffed, turning away. "It only makes sense, right? The greatest heroes humanity has ever known, the odds of her showing up wasn't impossible, it's only natural I wanted to be prepared!"

"Sure, sure." Archer noted, his eye quirking in amusement. "And you've done that for every other Servant that's ever lived and died, correct?"

"Y-yes." She fired back, confidence shaken but nonetheless defiant. He shook his head, deciding to drop the topic while he was still ahead.

"Alright, Degurechaff as an ally then." He shrugged. "How are we gonna convince her that it's in her best interest to partner up with us?"

At that, Rin smirked. "You just leave that to me. Just focus on not pissing her off or trying to kill her Master or anything else which, by the way, thanks a lot for that? I don't think I've ripped you a new one for that crap yet."

He smirked. "True enough, but I'd recommend that you save your energy. After all, what would poor, disappointed, Tanya say if you don't have enough energy for her huh?"

"Oh my god." Rin rolled her eyes, turning away to hide the blush of embarrassment. "Let's just go home now. We've got a lunch to prepare for and a Servant to seduce to our side."

"Seduce huh?"

"Shut up."

Archer said nothing, merely chuckling as he allowed his corporeal form to dissipate, the Servant following along behind his Master as they made their way back home. She didn't demand his attention much for the rest of the night, beyond a few muttered questions here and there. Beyond that, as focused as she was by the oncoming date, he was left largely to his own devices and thereby allowed Archer time to think.

It was obvious enough by this point that this was not his world. That in and of itself wasn't difficult to imagine, there had been plenty of occasions within his line of work that he'd had to be brought along to conflicts into worlds far, far, stranger than the one he'd lived and died in. That the only immediate difference that the Grail had seen fit to explain to him was that the timeline was slightly off and everything had a different name was easy enough to adapt to. That he was in such a different world from his own also meant that the Emiya Shirou present here was not the same Emiya Shirou that he himself had been, which meant that he doubted very much that killing him would do anything to his causal link with the World. He would still be trying to kill the boy, if for no other reason than for the sake of it potentially working out and snuffing out another potential hero from this world, but he had very little faith it would. Still, that this version of himself was being trained by Kotomine Kirei of all people was such an alien, disgusting, thought that he might have just killed him for that singular crime alone.

No, of significantly more interest was the Caster of this war, a Servant he'd never known or heard of and with whom the Throne was being curiously quiet on.

The moment he'd been summoned into this world, he'd known that something was incredibly different from his own world. The Grail typically only informed a Servant of the necessary facts of history so as not to embarrass themselves, but that such relevant facts dates all the way back to the beginning of the twentieth century was incredibly peculiar. That a form of magecraft had been accepted and adapted into the human consciousness was even more bizarre, though not nearly as interesting as the woman seen to be the harbinger of that change.

Because as much as he enjoyed teasing Rin about her obvious crush on the Kaiserin, Archer couldn't really blame her. What information he'd been privy to just by casual observation already suggested interesting things about her, and upon further questioning such interest only increased. It wasn't especially hard to become interested once one learned more of the relevant facts, for one to have learned and fought as young as she had, to have become the leader of her country and thereon to lead it to greatness? It was no wonder that she became a Heroic Spirit, not when the entire world still reverberated with the consequences of her decisions. She was a larger than life figure and in a thousand years when all this was but dust in the wind, he was certain that her name would still endure.

Which was incredibly suspicious, all things considered. Tanya von Degurechaff was an anomaly near exclusive to this particular reality, which was highly unusual as far as such things went. Worlds changed, the course of human history may alter itself, but typically those same heroes would exist in one form or another. Yes, there would be occasions were due to the circumstances of one particular reality a Hero may not rise to prominence in the same way or even at all, but rarer still for them to have left no mark at all in their lifetime. In a strange sort of way, their greatness would still shine through somehow, their presence in that reality still making itself evident in one way or another.

Tanya von Degurechaff had not existed in his reality. Perhaps that wasn't too unusual, to be a child in that era of human history would have easily meant her early death, but neither was she present in any of the other realities that he could even vaguely recall. There should have been whispers of her presence, sparks of what she could have been, the failed ignitions of her ascension to greatness. Yet there was nothing, not even a blip, not even a vague glimmer of possibility.

He could not give any definitive proof on the matter, especially as he couldn't very well comb through every alternate reality to find a speck of Degurechaff's existence, but Archer could tell in his gut that there was something wrong with her. That she was not meant to be. She was unusual, aberrant, in a way that very few things were and an aberration at this level of play was horridly, spectacularly, dangerous. That her influence managed to reach the collective consciousness of humanity, even more so.

Archer wouldn't interfere with Rin's decision to ally with the Caster, in the off chance that he was being paranoid and Degurechaff was but an unusual speck in the grand scheme of things. She was right that Caster would be a formidable ally after all, and if nothing else it gave Archer more opportunities to converse with her. To observe her, study her, figure out what exactly about her bothered him so.

He'd been in too many disasters, too many tragedies, where he'd been present and had not the ability to do anything meaningful about it. If Degurechaff proved to be a threat that needed to be taken cared of, he needed to know as soon as possible.

She skipped along the path, a much more sedate pace than with which they first arrived. Contrary to her command earlier, whereupon she had been consumed by a murderous impulse that he himself knew so well, now she was merely whimsical and carefree. She had taken flowers from the path, telling him that she would place it in his hair once they arrived home. In truth, she had admitted that had she her own way those very same flowers would already have found themselves within his mane. Unfortunately, she mewled with disappointment that Servants were expected to hold a certain degree of gravitas, and as such walking about with flowers in his hair would have dampened that effect somewhat.

If forced to give an opinion, he would not have minded very much either. Truth be told, the concept of preference and thought as he once knew it was a vague, faraway, thing now. To have a preference, to think, implied choice after all, and choice taken foolishly and without consideration was no choice at all.

The moon was bright, the snow falling down from the heavens and alighting upon the girl's shoulders. In her impulse and fury, she had left the castle without properly donning clothes more appropriate to the weather. She was still in her pajamas, thin and insufficient for the current environment, and yet she endured it nonetheless. If given leeway to do so, he would have wondered whether she would prefer for him to carry her atop his shoulders to spare her the cold of the ground, but such leeway was not given, so he did not wonder.

To be a Berserker was to be apart from the other classes. It was to have one's sanity, one's consciousness, one's will, stripped and tossed into the void like feed for the sharks. It was to be trapped as an observer far and away from one's own body, left as a slave to the rageful impulses and rot of the mind. Power in exchange for madness. Madness in exchange for power. He knew that exchange all too well, had been party to it all too well. Despite it all, if he'd been allowed to ponder on it further, he would have concluded that being summoned as such was only appropriate considering his crimes. Considering his failures.

But he had not been allowed to ponder on it, so he did not.

His ward stopped for a moment, and so did he. There, having approached her with the curiosity of all small animals, was a pup. Small and curiously alone in the desolate streets, it approached the girl with the fearless candor of youth and she cooed in response, her hands clasping together. She settled down to play with the animal, it's response to her jabs fierce and adventurous, its mouth wide and playful as it struggled against her.

For a moment, a twitch of impulse made itself known, a minimal surge of bloodlust at the small, though ultimately harmless, surge of aggression against his ward. The magical structure of the enhancements installed within him sparked into life, flooding his mind with that familiar red rage, bidding him to take form, to manifest himself and pulverize the animal that dared fight against his ward. He stood implacable against the impulse, his mind an obsidian monument to his will as it washed away against him. He had not been ordered to maim and kill, and so he would not.

His ward spoke, and he turned away from the pup to face her. She is saying something, in a language in which he knows, but does not understand. It is not that he is unfamiliar with the language, like all Servants such information would have been implanted into his consciousness once summoned, it was more that he was not allowed to understand. The enhancement sunk and crept along the darkness of his mind, the words robbed of their meaning before he could comprehend them. The capability to comprehend languages was an integral aspect in one's ability to conduct a war, to coordinate between allies and parlay against one's enemies. But his role here was as that of a battering ram rather than a soldier, such a tool did not need to coordinate with allies that did not exist. It did not need to parlay against enemies from which no quarter is given or taken. All it required was a direction so as to pulverize all in its wake.

He had endured worse, and truth be told the inability understand her words did not mean an inability to understand her. It was in the way she spoke, the manner in which she moved and enunciated her words. That the glint of her crimson pupils and the narrowing of the corner of her eyes indicated genuine humor, that her lips showed teeth as she laughed with the pup showed love. The way she gesticulated to the pup, treating it as though it were a child or perhaps a partner, told him more about his ward than all those times when she had curtsied and bowed to her elders and handler. One could learn much from studying masks, but rarely would they learn the character of the one wearing them.

She held the pup over to him, as though showing the creature off. In contrast with the exuberance it had displayed earlier, the pup was much more sedate now. Its tail hanged between its legs, it sought to use its paws to hide its face, it seemed afraid. The fear only grew as he approached, the creature whimpering as his ward looked on curiously.

No order was given, no intent made. He was not to kill the creature, he was not to interrogate, or maim, or destroy, or crush. As such, whatever she intended for him to do to the pup was not an act of violence, which drastically reduced his capabilities in accomplishing what she expected of him. He kneeled to the ground, and if he were still corporeal the ground would shake at his action, before slowly raising his arm to the air. An invisible hand reached forward, a sole finger thicker than the animal itself, reaching out to hold it.

His ward stepped back, frowning, and his hand fell. Not to hold it then. His hand turned sideways, held horizontally and over the pup now. This time he was rewarded with a smile, her steps moving closer to him in response.

A moment later the tension returned, and the shard of warmth she showed him dissipated into the wind, replaced with that mask of calm bemusement she most often wore. She brings the pup close to her chest, adopting a more innocent guise as she turns around as his own attention strayed to what had displeased her so.

The answer was easy enough. A presence several feet away, a man dressed in the appropriate, casual, attire of the time. The man was young, outwardly genial, conventionally handsome. In its hands was a leash several sizes too large for the pup, his apologetic expression almost painfully false. He did not need to see his ward's expression to know that she was displeased.

By wit of previous experience, he was aware that the most prudent means of satisfying her when she was displeased was to kill something for her. Despite that, she had given no orders, allowed no intent of violence for the moment. As such he turned his gaze away from the man, eyes studying the surroundings for other things to kill.

The answer came easily enough. More men, a handful, scattered throughout the immediate area. They kept themselves hidden but were pathetically sloppy in their attempt to hide, shadows lurking between houses and dimly lit alleyways. They did not seem heavily armed, enough to pose a threat to things lesser than he, but not nearly sufficient to breach his defenses. His own wellbeing was immaterial however, not when the priority was his ward, and given proper motive and ill timing they could conceivably hurt her.

The bloodlust returned, stronger and more relentless, but he stayed true to his purpose. The waters splashed against that obsidian pillar, and so it was repelled once more. He turned to his ward, awaiting further orders.

Yet his ward would not unleash him. She bid him stop, to watch and listen, and instead she seemed to be playing a game with the man; to play the role of an innocent as she learned more about it. Judging from the man's expression, the pains it took to appear nonthreatening, the way its hand seemed ready to reach out for hers, it wanted her to accompany him. It continued to be friendly, patiently answering his ward's questions as it took the opportunity of conversation to slowly inch itself closer and closer to her.

The questions she asked were immaterial to him, the knowledge unimportant, but it became increasingly clear that the answers it was giving were not the sort that his ward wished to hear. The more they talked, the more her mask slipped, the more her fury became evident. Not the tempestuous impulse that he had seen so many times before, but a deeper, more abiding, outrage that seemed to strike at her to the core. He had seen it only a handful of times since having met her, but such fury always precipitated an explosion of violence unlike anything before it.

He knew it was coming, so he waited, the bloodlust building up as the storm within him grew larger and larger, the only thing separating the man from its death being his ward's patience and his own will.

Yet even blind and witless to the true danger, the man could sense that something was wrong. Long buried survival instincts coming into the foreground as the child it expected to be witless and defenseless seemed to prove to be anything but. It smiled, a nervous glimmer of his true emotions, before standing up and backing away from her. His ward followed, her hands holding the pup firmly even as the animal wailed and struggled, seemingly aware of the oncoming violence. This seemed to be enough for it, the man turning away, only for his ward to grab it by the sleeve of its shirt. Its nerve broke at that, its hand reaching out to slap away at her own.

Which was when his ward allowed his impulses loose, and he allowed himself to be washed up into the storm.

In a flurry of motion, the man's hand disappeared, along with everything else above the elbow. Its eyes widened, the panic in its eyes transforming into shock and horror. Blood spurted from the wound, the man falling to its knees as his ward skipped closer to it, the vicious playfulness of a predator playing with her prey.

But he was no longer paying attention to that one, not when other threats existed, and so he was already on the move.

A nearby wall shattered in his wake as Berserker burst through it, revealing a man in tactical gear and a magical instrument hidden within the confines of its clothes. He was not naturally given over to restraint and so in the next moment the man transformed into a hideous stain on the floor, its ragged body flying up into the air like some macabre firecracker. The wailing thing of flesh and muscle would have died instantly with any other blow, but his mistress was still angry, and so he interpreted such disdain as a desire for cruelty and strove to meet her expectations. He had angled his blow upwards, the ungainly thing that was his blade carving out a trench into the concrete before pulverizing his lower body with the upturned strike. Its organs were crushed, the magical artefact upon its person obliterated alongside it even as his legs were cut apart and sent flying in opposite directions. The enemy would scream, long and loud, until the arc of its fall ended and gravity would allow the enemy a more merciful end.

A house shattered as he burst through the roof, shattering two floors in his descent until he collapsed upon another enemy. This one had cowered within the dwelling, frozen stiff as a statue, its expression veiled by the helm it wore. Its cowardice and indecision cost what little chance it had to escape and so his arm swung downwards, pulverizing more of the house with a thundering roar as it impacted enemy, who yet retained enough presence of mind to manifest a shield barely in time to meet his fist

It did not matter. The shield shattered with the sheer strength of his blow, catching the enemy in the chest even as it had raised its hand to somehow weather the strike. The sheer kinetic force of his arm was sufficient to overwhelm such resistance, and its spine broke moments after its arms did. Its body was ragdolled through the house and across the street, breaking through one wall before colliding upon its opposite number across the street, limbs tangled and twisted as it died.

Berserker jumped, what remained of the roof obliterated in his wake as he aimed his sights for those that remained. It was simple enough to find them, two running as fast as they can away from the carnage. Both had their shields up and, though one had yet to do so, another was already racing for the sky in the hope that such a maneuver would preserve its life.

Its shield hummed crimson as he collided with the fleeing enemy, the shock of it sufficient to knock the enemy unconscious, its head lolling about as it likely suffered a concussion. His hand reached out, grabbing it by the head and squeezing until its shield shattered. With another exertion he cast his hand out, its head still firmly within his grasp, before throwing the unconscious fool into its compatriot below. His aim was true, the throw the stuff of legends, and the enemy did not respond in time before being engulfed by the sheer kinetic force of his strength. The ground shattered upon impact, clouds of dust rising up as the earth collapsed and heralded the death of another enemy. To be certain, Berserker landed atop the second soon after, his chest popping like a cherry as he stomped him to death.

Silence fell upon the battlefield and he turned his attention back to his ward. She was safe and sound, watching the first enemy with bemusement as it soiled itself. She rankled her nose, shaking her head as she did and sighing, before nuzzling the pup closer. If it had been terrified before, it was catatonic now, and only his ward's firm grasp upon its form stopped the pup from squirming out of her grasp and into the night.

She turned to look at him, before looking back to the man. He understood her meaning well enough, and so he marched forward, grabbing the man by the back of it clothes like some miscreant animal, before raising it up in the air. The enemy did not resist, seemingly recognizing that submission was preferable to extinction, and so he did not hurt the man more than necessary.

A nearby sound, one of irritation, and he turned around to see his ward grace him with a disappointed look. A few moments of thought later, Berserker knelt closer to the ground, his hand accepting the girl's happy jump into his arms as he nestled her atop his shoulder. The pup remained terrified at this.

She nestled close to him, a sigh and a whisper denoting her exhaustion, and so he turned to the direction of the castle. A moment's effort, a trickle of force into his legs, and they were all airborne. The night was cold, though he did not feel it, the wind howling at his passengers like the screams of the dead. The captured enemy squealed in fright, even as the pup barked into his ward's ears and she giggled in delight.

This life was good, though he had not chosen it. Should he be given leave to choose, he would wish only for this life to remain so.

AN: First of two parts. Second part in a few days.