Chiron: "Were you expecting something else?"

Servant: Archer

Master: Akiko Hashimoto

Akiko: "Archer, come take a look over here."

Chiron: "It seems that my role as a teacher will extend to after my death."

The door led out to the courtyard. That's where the retreating priest was.

"Stop running, you piece of shit!" Akiko shouted. However, Kirei seemed to ignore her and kept moving away.

"Stop where you are, or I'll kill ya in your next breath," Lancer snarled. This time, Kirei came to a stop. The spearman whispered in Akiko's ear. "That's how ya threaten someone."

"He probably only listened since you're a Servant and would actually be capable of that," Akiko said back. Kirei slowly turned around and faced the two without saying a word. Lancer took a step forward, ready to defend his Master if needed. Then she heard the priest chuckle. "What's so funny?"

"You are aware that Lancer is not the real Cu Chulainn, just his copy?"

"I knew that from the very beginning! What of it?!"

"And you're still willing to trust him? If you can't completely, I'll take him off your hands."

"What?!" Akiko and Lancer both exclaimed.

"Just hand over your Command Seals to me so that I can force him to obey me."

"But you already have a Servant!" Akiko pointed out.

"Gilgamesh does not take mana from me. Rather, from another source. So I can handle another Servant. I'm sure that with two, I will win the Holy Grail. If you cooperate willingly, I may even be willing to share it with you."

"Bullshit!" Lancer shouted. "We all already know it will only grant one wish! That's why we're fightin' fer it in the first place!"

"Allow me to rephrase: when I said I would share it with you, Hashimoto, I meant that I will grant your wish."

"What?!" Akiko demanded.

"Just think about it: you give me your Servant and you will win the Holy Grail for certain."

"No way is she gonna do that!" Lancer exclaimed angrily. "And besides, I'd rather die than serve you!"

"...That's enough," Akiko said to Lancer.

Lancer glanced at her. "Akiko? You can't really be considerin' agreein' to him!"

"Shut up, dog," Kirei said to the Servant.

Lancer glared at Kirei and bared his fangs, appearing similar to an angry dog about to lunge for someone's throat. "What didja just call me?!"

"Back down!" Akiko sternly ordered to Lancer. The Servant looked back at her with shock etched on his features, red eyes wide in genuine surprise.

"Wha -"

She locked her gaze with the knight's in front of her. "This is my decision."

Kirei looked at Akiko calmly. "Well? What do you say?"

She looked at him. "...I refuse."

Kirei narrowed his eyes at the teen. "What did you say? What about winning the Holy Grail?"

"If I don't fight for the Grail, then I won't feel satisfaction in getting it! Besides, I'm not about to abandon Cu Chulainn!"

Kirei smirked and huffed a single laugh. "You still choose to call him Cu Chulainn? Even though he's a fake?"

"His soul may be copied from the soul of the real Cu Chulainn, but that doesn't change who I know him as! He's still the same man that I've come to love! And why I call him Cu Chulainn, despite Lancer not truly being him, is simple! He chooses to be Cu Chulainn! If he wants to go by another name, he can just tell me and I would be fine with it. But why he is able to be Cu Chulainn is this: even though his soul was copied, it hasn't changed! He's still has the same personality and memories he did his first life!"

Lancer looked at Akiko and grinned. He got Gae Bolg at the ready, its tip pointed at Kirei. "Ya heard her refusal, Priesty."

Kirei took a deep breath. "Very well. If you will not cooperate willingly..." Then he took out the handles of six swords, three in each hand. Each handle was held in between the two fingers next to each other. Then blades materialized on each. Black keys. "...I'll just have to sever your right arm to claim your Command Seal!"

Lancer grinned. "You'll hafta get past me to do that!"

Kirei chuckled and threw a black key at the spearman. Lancer knocked it to the side with a simple flick of his spear, a little confused. Why was this human taking a Servant lightly? He got his answer when Kirei opened his mouth. "Set."

The black key, which had been heading for a pillar, hit a glyph that suddenly materized in front of the weapon and shot it back to where it had originally targeted, which wasn't the Servant but rather the Master. The blade went all the way through the side of her left thigh, making her hit the ground with a groan of pain.

Lancer looked back at her, shocked that he allowed such a cheap trick get by him. "Akiko!"

Akiko was also angry at herself for allowing such simple magecraft harm her. She was better than this!

Lancer shot forward and swung Gae Bolg sideways at Kirei's neck, aiming to chop the man's head off. But Kirei simply ducked and the crimson lance sailed over his head, only slicing off some brown strands of hair at the very top. The spear smashed into a pillar, destroying it in an instant. Once the tip hit it, it burst into flecks of stone and granite. Then Kirei's fist collided with the Servant's gut. Lancer's eyes went wide and saliva came out of his mouth as he choked. The strength took him by surprise. He didn't think that a mere human would be capable of summoning up that much power!

The demigod went flying back, flying past Akiko and smashing into the wall behind her. He coughed harshly, laying back against the giant crater behind him. Some blood stained his lips and a little bit trickled out from one corner of his mouth. He groaned, cracking one eye open to glare at Kirei's hazy form. Akiko's eyes went wide. No way his own mana would give him enough power to knock back a Servant! He must be using another source as well.

Akiko tore the blade out and ran clumsily at Kirei. He stepped to the side to avoid her thrown fist and kneed her in the gut. She doubled over in pain. At the same time, Kirei locked both sets of his fingers together, bringing the fist down onto her back. Akiko was on the ruined remains of the concrete, coughing hard.

"I'll be taking this," Kirei said, grabbing Akiko's right arm with one hand, her Command Seal displayed to him. In his other hand, he pulled out a single black key, materializing the blade. He brought the blade up and was just about to sever the forearm when a voice called out.

"That's enough!" Lancer was coming at Kirei, eyes full of rage and holding Gae Bolg tightly for a stab to the heart. Kirei immediately switched his grip from Akiko's arm to a handful of her hair. Her barely-conscious body was then dragged and held out in the path of her Servant like a shield. This caused Lancer to hesitate, momentarily stopping his charge. Though he would only need a second to attack around his Master instead, it was too late. Kirei dropped the black key in his other hand in favor for clenching it into a fist. He threw the punch at the Servant, hitting him in the chest and sending him back into the wall, stone being thrown up by the hard impact his body made. Kirei dropped the mage he was holding and grabbed the black key again, turning his attention back to her right arm.

However, Lancer wasn't about to give up so easily. He wasn't going to let this sort of thing happen to his Master again. Again?

Akiko should have been his only Master, but the thought that this sort of thing happened before still nagged at him. Did he lose his Master in a similar fashion in another timeline?

Lancer suddenly wanted to laugh at himself. His brain must really be getting scrambled if he was suddenly starting to think the multiverse may be an actual thing. But regardless, he needed to save his Master in this timeline before he loses her.

As he pulled himself out of the wall, he thrust Gae Bolg, sending a beam of red energy at Kirei, making sure to aim it so it wouldn't end up hitting Akiko. The false priest jumped to the side to avoid being hit. Almost right at the same time, Lancer jumped forth from the crater in the wall that his body had created, landing lightly at the side of his Master.

He faced Kirei, standing between the priest and his Master, who he helped to her feet, and pointed Gae Bolg at him. "Why are ya so fixated on gettin' her Command Seal? She only has one stroke left and even if you did manage to get it, you would need to use it right away to keep me from claimin' yer head!"

Kirei smirked. "I only need it to force a pact with you." He reached over to his right arm and grabbed the bottom of the sleeve. He then pulled it up to the elbow. "But as for the other orders for you, I'll have that taken care of."

Lancer's eyes went wide when he saw the man's forearm. It was covered in scars of red.

No, they weren't scars. They were multiple Command Seal strokes. Half were faded. He must have used them to boost his strength for this battle.

Kirei was looking Lancer right in the eye while grinning. "When you're my Servant, shall I be the one to kill your Master? Or should I use a Command Seal to force you to do it? How about -"

Kirei was abruptly cut off from his gloating when he had to jump out of the way as three spears of ice were suddenly flung at him. Immediately, he used his left arm to block Akiko's roundhouse kick aimed for his head. Sparks of mana flew from the leg and the forearm in a shower.

"Why don't you shut the fuck up?" Akiko snarled. Both separated and Kirei made the first move, rushing at the teen head-on. Akiko just stood there, as if to fully receive his blow. Several lavender chains burst out of the ground under the priest. He tried to jump back before they could bind him, but the chains changed course in order to follow. He threw more black keys at them, the weapons getting ensnared instead.

Spikes of earth rose up under Kirei as soon as the priest landed. Instead of trying to dodge them, the man punched down on some right before they could impale him, flattening them. He also ripped away two of the earthly spikes, holding one in each hand, and hurled them point-first at the mage. What looked like two large fireballs shot down from the sky, obliterating both.

Kirei, using the resulting smokescreen as a cover, lunged forward and threw a punch imbued with mana at Akiko's abdomen. Lancer moved in quickly, shoving his Master to the side and taking the blow in her place. He braced himself for it, now knowing what to expect. As soon as the fist connected, however, Lancer raised one hand to the arm, wrapping his fingers around it. He tightened his fingers and the bones in Kirei's arm were heard being crushed. The priest used a black key in the other hand to try severing Lancer's forearm, but the Servant let go and pulled his arm back, the blade slicing through empty air, and kicked Kirei back and his body smashed through a wall.

"Doesn't matter if you increased your strength," Lancer said, "yer still just a mere human in the end."

One of Akiko's hands shot out, aimed at the hole in the wall Kirei vanished into. The stone below, moving like a liquid, moved into the hole and hardened around whatever she could see within, hopefully trapping the enemy.

The wall right next to the hole burst. "Shit!" She stopped what she had been doing and materalized a shield to protect her from the chunks of stone flying at her like bullets from a machine gun.

"You're being very annoying." Kirei shot out of the new hole that was made. Lancer was about to intercept, but the priest threw three black keys down on the ground in front of the Servant. Red light flashed from them briefly before the blades expanded in size, making the knight halt momentarily. It wouldn't even take him a second to break the blades, but he wouldn't be able to save his Master in time.

"Don't look down on me!" Akiko shouted. The shield, still up, had captured all the debris that hit it and froze them in the space within. They were then shot out at Kirei, going twice as fast as before. Kirei used his left arm, which wasn't crushed, to defend against the rocky onslaught.

Lancer was suddenly in front of the priest. His Protection Against Arrows skill was defending him from the spell. The shaft of the demonic spear slammed into Kirei's right side, destroying a couple of ribs and flinging the enemy through a pillar on the other side of the courtyard and into yet another wall.

Lancer sighed. "Fightin' a human really isn't that much fun."

Akiko suddenly gave a shout of pain and was clutching the sides of her head.

This was in Akiko's house. The location was the room where she practices her magecraft. A piece of paper came out of the fax machine. Akiko picked it up and looked it over. She then exited the room and went to the living room. Lancer was on the couch, watching a game show on T.V.

"Fuckin' moron!" he shouted. If that's the way he yells at contestants on T.V, imagine if he was a member of the audience. "How'd ya even get on?! I swear they get these dumbasses straight off the street..."

Akiko released a heavy sigh. "You know they can't hear you...Anyway, I got another job from the Clock Tower." Being 18 activated the geas on her. She's unable to refuse any job the Association sends her. If she does, she'll lose her life. This is what it means to be in debt to them.

"What is it this time?"

"Wiping out a group of first-rate mages in Ikebukuro."

Lancer let out a sigh as he shut off the T.V. and got up from the couch. "We just finished one three days ago! And one involvin' wipin' out a village of Dead Apostles in Cuba a week and a half before that! Do they enjoy workin' us like a couple dogs?!"

"Well, I'm the only mage with a Heroic Spirit as a familiar. They seem to be using that to justify giving us so many jobs. And they aren't exactly easy either. I'm honestly surprised they haven't had us doing sealing designations yet. But there may also have been any since after the War."

"Y'know, just 'cause ya brought it up they're gonna have one as our next job."

"You may actually be right..."

That was after the War? So there is a possibility she'll keep him as her familiar.

"Akiko?" Lancer was looking at his Master. This also meant his back was now facing where he had kicked Kirei. But he hasn't let his guard down. The priest in one gutsy human to be fighting a Servant for this long.

Sorry about how lame this was. That's actually part of the reason this took awhile. No matter how strong, Kirei's still a mere human up against a Knight Class.