As Rider and his portly master disappeared Rin heard a clatter from the fire escape behind them. She turned around just as Shirou clamored up onto the roof and dusted himself off.
"What'd I miss?" He asked.
"The whole fight." Rin replied.
Shirou looked crestfallen, like she'd told him he'd missed the championship game of the sportball of his choice. Of course, this being Shirou the disappointment only lasted a moment before he was flashing around his trademark grin. It puzzled Rin how anyone could be that cheerful.
"You gotta do what you gotta do, right? At least nobody got hurt this time. But this is the second time that Magnus has started a fight in the middle of the day. If he keeps it up he's gonna draw too much attention from the Burial Agency and then things might get ugly." He said, worry tinging his words.
Rin nodded.
"It's too dangerous to just keep responding to threats as they come up. We need to come up with a strategy. I don't think we'll be able to take out any of the other servants without help, we need to pit them against each other, draw them into conflict and then attack when they're weakened." She said thoughtfully.
"Me and Caster will help however we can." Ilya chimed in and Rin clasped her shoulder.
"I think Assassin could beat Rider, he may be the only one who can since Rider is essentially immune to physical attacks. And Lancer's speed may give her the edge she needs to kill Assassin." Rin said.
"Caster's time control magic will give us an edge against Lancer." Ilya volunteered.
Rin nodded in agreement.
"Right now the biggest threat is Saber. Between his damage negation and Gram I really don't see a way of beating him in an outright fight. Maybe we could draw him into conflict with several of the other Servants and attack when he's weakened." Rin mused.
"It's all just tactical rock paper scissors." Shirou said in a nonchalant tone.
"I'm sure everything will work itself out. In the meantime I'm more concerned with Omega. Do you still have that letter?" He asked.
Rin handed over the faded letter that Genjo had sent and Shirou flipped it over to show the address on the back. There was a hand written address there but no return address. It hadn't been post marked, obviously hand delivered by courier.
"That's the only lead we have right now. I'm headed over there. You two...might want to stay here." He said, looking between Rin and Ilya cautiously.
Rin felt her ire rising and she stalked forward.
"Why? Is this all a game to you? Some macho, he-man solo mission? You think that you're some kind of an action hero? That we can't handle ourselves?" She demanded, thumping her pointer finger against his chest to punctuate her words.
Shirou's eyes fell.
"It's just that...it seems like both of your families are involved in this. I know that you aren't," He quickly added, throwing his hands up when Rin began to protest.
"But there's a lot of evidence that someone in your family is involved. Someone high up in your family. I care about you. Both of you. A lot. It's just that, well, you might not like what you find out. Some doors should stay closed." He said.
Rin was a little taken aback by his foresight but it didn't change matters.
"I am the heir to the Tohsaka household. If my family has any dirty laundry it's my job to deal with it. I won't hide from my responsibilities." She declared imperiously.
"Me too!" Ilya added, clenching one dainty hand into a determined fist.
"Nobody is running away from their responsibilities. I'm not a child." She added, seeming a bit over eager to prove her last point to Shirou.
For his part Shirou nodded.
"Okay then. Let's get moving."
…
The address led them to a rundown tenement in a low rent portion of the city. It wasn't exactly a slum but the buildings were old and the cars that lined the street were in various states of disrepair, obviously not a moneyed neighborhood.
They cruised slowly down the street past the apartment complex where the letter had been addressed to. Rin expected Shirou to stop the car and quirked an eyebrow when he didn't.
"This is it." She said.
He kept his eyes focused on the road and kept his hands on the wheel but gestured slightly with his elbow.
"Look up at the corner of the building." He said.
Rin scanned the faded red brick for a short moment before she spotted what he was talking about. An inconspicuous security camera was mounted high on the building, its view focused on the street. Rin had been scanning for magical detection systems but had completely forgotten to look for more mundane intrusion countermeasures. It was the same reason she had decided to carry a regular cellular phone, something that she had nearly completely forgotten about. She realized that whatever Project Omega was they had already done what she planned to do to the Tohsaka family infrastructure. They had modernized. She made a note to bear that in mind during her investigation.
"Drive around the corner. We'll look for a back entrance." She said.
Shirou nodded and complied, parking around the corner of the building where the camera couldn't see them. Shirou got out of the car and pulled a screwdriver out of his pocket. He quickly popped the plastic cover off of the car's rear view mirror and then unscrewed it, pulling it off and tucking his screwdriver back into his pocket when he was done.
"There may be another camera around back." He said by way of explanation to Rin and Ilya's odd looks.
He led the way to the corner of the building and crouched down, holding the mirror inconspicuously around the edge. He motioned for the others to wait as he used the reflection to examine the wall of the building.
"Looks clear." He said.
The back door was as grimy and nondescript as the alley. Shirou glanced around and then stepped back, obviously winding up to kick it in.
"Wait!" Rin hissed, throwing her hands out.
"I'm sure if they've got surveillance cameras watching the street they've at least got the door alarmed." She said bitingly, pushing past Shirou haughtily and bending to inspect the door.
He backed off sheepishly. Rin cast a quick identification spell on the door. There was copper and plastic, which probably meant wiring or circuitry, and she definitely detected that teeth-on-edge vibration that meant there was live current running through it. Alarmed for sure then. She closed here eyes and focused on where the current was strongest, pushing out with a pinpoint but strong haywire spell to scramble any electronics temporarily. There was a slight pause and then she felt something give way beneath her magical pressure like slicing through a string.
She cursed loudly.
"What?" Shirou asked, looking at her in alarm.
"They had the door alarmed, but they also had the alarm system magically warded. I tripped the ward when I tried to disable the alarm." Rin said.
Shirou looked anxiously between the door that held the secrets to Omega and the two mages standing beside him. It only took him a moment to make up his mind.
"Too risky. We need to get out of here, we'll come back later after the alarm dies down. Head back to the car, I'm right behind you." He said.
Rin led the procession in an anxious trot back to the car, Ilya and Caster hot on her heels. She had just opened the car door when she heard a splintering crash from behind her. She whirled just in time to see Shirou kick the door open and disappear inside.
"That idiot!" She hissed under her breath.
She hustled Ilya into the passenger side and pushed Caster into the driver's seat.
"Can you drive this?" She demanded.
"Child, for a brilliant mechanical mind such as my own such a simple task would be..."
"Good. Get her out of here." She said and slammed the door.
She could see Ilya twist angrily around in her seat to pound on the rear windshield as the car sped off but it didn't alter its course until they were out of sight. Rin sprinted back through the splintered doorway and into the building.
The interior was dimly lit by flickering bulbs. Mildew stains colored the wall in blotches. Rin saw another door ajar a short way down the hallway and hurried towards it. It led to a staircase that spiraled upwards, a door for each floor of the building opening on one side. She could hear someone climbing the staircase above her and she half hissed, half yelled "Shirou!"
The footsteps stopped and Shirou's head poked out over the bannister. He grinned when he saw her.
"So you decided to join me after all." He said, quickly descending to meet her as she climbed the stairs.
"You tried to get rid of us!" Rin said angrily.
"Keep your voice down! Yeah, um, I had no idea what was up here and I didn't want to put you two in danger." He replied, somewhat sheepishly.
Rin rolled her eyes in exasperation.
"Oh, of all the...We're both Masters in a war so powerful that you can't even imagine the scope. I'm one of the most powerful mages ever to graduate from the Clocktower and I can handle myself just fine. If you insist on always trying to..."
"That's great but we're in a bit of a crisis. Can we talk about this later?" He interrupted her, grabbing her hand and dragging her behind him.
Rin blushed at the sudden contact, fighting not to stammer as she tried to keep up.
"H-how do you know what we're looking for?" She asked as they climbed.
"I don't. So keep your eyes peeled." Shirou said.
They hustled up several more floors when Shirou stopped half way up a flight of stairs and turned around.
"It's this one." He said, backing down to the previous landing and pressing his ear against the door there. Somewhat to her regret he dropped Rin's hand.
"How do you know?" She asked, puzzled.
"I just walked through a cobweb. Whoever comes here regularly doesn't go up past this floor, so the spider webs are intact above this."
He tried the handle and when he found it locked he backed up a step, pushing Rin behind him.
"No don...'t." She said as he hauled off and kicked the door in.
"Too late for subtlety now." He said, hurrying through.
To Rin's surprise the room was completely empty of scurrying defenders alerted by the alarm. It was also completely at odds with the rest of the building. Mildewy wallpaper was replaced with clean white paint. Filthy carpets were now clean linoleum. Flickering incandescent lights were now bright white florescents. The room looked like a hospital or an orderly office building. It took up the entire floor as evidenced by the shaded windows on all four wide walls. It was also largely empty except for a long row of server racks, some file cabinets, and a small living area that had been set up with several cots and a hot plate.
"It's a safehouse." Shirou said, moving towards the computer terminal attached to the server racks.
"I'll see what I can get from the computer, you check those filing cabinets. We need to find out whatever we can before whoever that alarm tipped off shows up." He said.
Rin nodded and moved towards the filing racks. They were locked but it was a simple matter to reach into the tumbler with a thin thread of force and lift the pins just enough for it to click open. The files looked like medical histories. They listed allergies, cholesterol, blood pressure. They had no names, only designations like a double blind medical trial. And, to Rin's horror, they all ended in a similar way.
K series subject 57 died of massive internal hemorrhaging during experimentation.
G series subject 22 died of organ rejection during experimentation.
I series subject 218 died of an overdose during experimentation.
She looked through a few more to verify that they were all the same and then moved on to the next filing cabinet.
"Finding anything?" Shirou asked from behind her.
Rin jumped and dropped the file she was holding. She blushed and scrambled to pick it up.
"Don't scare me like that!" She said angrily, whacking him on the chest with the file.
He held up his hands apologetically.
"Sorry. Computer's password protected. I can't get in." He said.
"Can't you, oh, I don't know...hack it or something?" Rin asked.
Shirou chuckled.
"You've been watchin' too many movies. I don't really know how to do that sort of thing. And besides, I'm pretty sure it takes a really long time. We need to get out of here now, before anyone shows up to investigate." He said.
"Too late." Came the reply from the doorway.
Shirou and Rin both whirled, altho she had the presence of mind to keep her hold on the file this time. There were two figures standing in the entrance to the safehouse. The smaller was a young woman about Rin's age. She had shoulder length hair in a soothing shade of pastel blue. She wore innocuous civilian clothing, a pink skirt and matching sweater. There was something oddly familiar with her but Rin couldn't place where she had seen her before. Her eyes were filled with the sort of hollow emptiness you see in refugees and disaster survivors altho there was nothing about her to suggest that was the case.
The larger figure, clad in buckskins and feathers, was Archer.
"How..." Rin breathed. She had seen Archer take the full brunt of Saber's nuclear explosion noble phantasm.
Desperate for clues she flicked open her grail vision. A new entry had appeared under Archer's data sheet.
CLASS ABILITIES:
Undaunted Spirit: Whenever Archer is targeted by an attack that would kill him he may first activate any skill or Noble Phantasm in his possession.
But how would that allow him to survive Saber's assault? Archer didn't have any defensive skills powerful enough to...of course! He had Disengage! Rin marveled at how powerful Servants could be. Rider was physically invincible, but Archer had perhaps an even better invulnerability. Any time he would be killed by an attack he could simply Disengage and retreat from combat instead of dying. He was virtually impossible to kill.
"Give me the file, Rin." The blue haired mage said, breaking into Rin's thoughts. Her voice was flat, emotionless.
Rin was taken aback.
"How do you know my name?" She asked, clutching the manilla file folder to her chest.
Something seemed to spark between the blue haired mage's empty eyes for an instant. But then it was gone.
"Unimportant. You will give me the file, or we will kill you."
Rin hesitated. Would they really let them go? The mage could simply have had Archer kill them already and taken the file instead of asking. But why didn't she kill them? Before she could reply she was interrupted by Shirou.
"Sorry to interrupt, toots, but we've got a date with your mass murdering boss." He said.
He bent to sweep Rin off her feet, gathering her up in his arms and springing towards the window. They crashed through in a shower of glass and seemed to hang there for an instant, suspended four stories above the street. Then Rin shrieked and they fell. A burst of magical energy erupted from Shirou and Rin could sense him fortifying. Beneath her fear she retained enough coherency to examine the process. Even with the magical lensing effect amplifying his magic when cast on his own body he was still putting out far, far more power than a mage should be capable of.
Then they slammed into the sidewalk. It shattered and cracked beneath Shirou's feet, collapsing into a mini crater where they landed. Rin was jolted like she had been through a car crash. He quickly set her on her feet as the aura of power faded from him.
"Are you alright? We need to get out of here before they get down here."
Rin wobbled uncertainly but nodded.
"Right. But warn me next time." She said.
However, they had no sooner taken a half dozen steps when Rin felt another massive impact behind them. They both whirled to see Archer standing in a small crater of his own.
"My Master will take the stairs. I, however, can follow you just fine." He said.
"Well...crud." Shirou said.
He pushed Rin to her feet and she once again felt the phenomenal power surging through him. For an instant she held out hope that he would be able to beat Archer. But then she realized that simple enhanced strength would count for very little against a Servant. And Archer hadn't yet unleashed his Noble Phantasm, so he still had that up his sleeve.
"Get out of here, Rin. I'll hold him off." He growled under his breath.
"Look, that's very noble of you, but I can't just let you..." She began but he cut her off.
"You have to. One of us has to get away with that file." He said.
And he was right. From a tactical perspective there was only one logical course of action. It made little sense to lose everything if he was willing to sacrifice himself to let her escape. If she stayed she would simply throw her life away along with his. She knew all of that. But Rin was finding that she cared less and less what was logical when it came to Shirou.
"I'm not leaving you." She said resolutely, a steely look on her features.
He looked searchingly into her eyes for a long moment and her heart fluttered. Then he nodded.
"Stay behind me." Was all he said.
Archer bowed respectfully.
"Very well then. Let us begin." He said.
With a Servant's swiftness he charged. Rin shot her hands out and sent a barrage of needle sharp ice shards pelting towards him. He dodged them easily but the attack re routed his charge into a vector that Shirou could easily meet. He moved with superhuman speed, not as fast as Archer, but still faster than a regular human would be capable of. He pounced on a nearby car and quickly tore one of its doors away, using it as a makeshift shield to fend off Archer's attacks.
He was careful to keep himself between Rin and Archer but he needn't have bothered. Archer ignored her and focused all of his attacks on Shirou. Rin supported him where she could with ice magic or shields but all she could do was enforce a stalemate between the two. With his impromptu shield Shirou was able to ward off the arrows and tomahawk strikes that Archer rained on him but was completely unable to mount any kind of meaningful counter attack. Here and there an attack would slip through is defenses and Rin's shields, opening a ghash along his arm or pinking his leg with the prick of an arrow. It was obviously not a fight they could win. And as soon as the blue haired mage arrived she would nullify Rin's spells and leave Shirou an easy target.
Hot tears of despair began to trickle down Rin's face as she fought. And then, as suddenly as it began, it was over. Shirou was being beaten backwards towards the curb. One misstep sent him sprawling backwards, the car door clattering to the ground beside him. And then Archer was on him, a single bloody tomahawk raised high for the killing blow. Time seemed to slow to a crawl as Rin watched the axe descend. Archer let out a bestial warcry.
No.
Archer didn't let out that warcry. It was...
"Berserker!" Rin cried.
Her massive servant barreled out of a nearby alley. The warcry had stayed Archers hand for a split second but that was all Berserker needed. He plowed into the lanky indian, knocking him off Shirou and sending them both sprawling. On a trice both were on their feet. Berserker moved to Rin's side, as did Shirou. Side by side the three of them faced off against Archer.
He straightened, an unreadable look on his features.
But we're back where we were before. Even with all three of us we can't hope to beat a fully powered servant. Rin thought.
But then another though occurred to Rin. Servant's don't have grail vision, only Masters. With his master still on the way Archer would have no way of knowing how powerful Berserker was.
"Follow my lead." She hissed out of the side of her mouth to Berserker.
"Berserker!" She cried in a loud voice, confidently pointing her finger at Archer.
"Use your One Touch Death technique!" She commanded.
Berserker quirked an eyebrow but when she gave him an urgent look he dropped into a fighting crouch.
"As you wish! One Finger Death Touch Technique!" He yelled loudly, charging forward wildly and swinging in a wide overhand arc at Archer.
Rin waited with baited breath. Archer would either kill Berserker like a man swats a fly or...
There was a moment's pause when Berserker's attack connected. Archer stood there and took on a hazy, smoky appearance. And then Berserker's charge carried him through where Archer was standing. Archer himself had vanished.
"Okay, now let's go." Rin said, turning to sprint down the street with Shirou and Berserker hot on her heels.
Shirou slapped Berserker on the shoulder.
"Perfect timing." He said.
"I awoke and you were gone. I came as fast as I could." Berserker said simply.
"Still, though. One finger death touch? I guess I underestimated you." Shirou said with a grin.
Berserker looked confused.
"No." Rin said. She explained about Archer's ability to disengage in response to any attack.
"So he can leave combat whenever he wishes. I was hoping that we could get him to disengage. It was a bluff, and he fell for it. It won't work twice." She said.
Shirou let out a low whistle.
"Clever. Let's head home and take a look at that." He said, pointing the folder that she was still clutching in her hand.