CHAPTER 19:

SHORT CHANGE HEROES

It was really an excuse, Harry knew. He had offered to patrol Fuyuki tonight, but with Archer instead of Medea. Medea, he made the excuse that she needed to work harder on the ritual to de-worm Sakura, especially now that Shinji was a lawn ornament on the bottom of the outlet of the Mion River. However, he told Medea the real reason over their link, and she accepted this. Rin took some more convincing, and Shirou and Arturia nearly accompanied him. He gave them a Portkey to take to his location if he called them on his phone.

Harry used Apparition to get to the roof of one of the few large buildings near Mount Enzou, sitting on the edge. Soon, Archer materialised, sitting down next to him. "You wanted to talk, didn't you?" Archer asked.

"Yeah. Merlin, Shirou, what the hell did you do to yourself?"

"The 'spray-on tan', my hair and eyes was partly due to how I used Reinforcement," Archer said. "But I'm guessing you mean how I became a Heroic Spirit. Well, the truth is, I'm not technically a Heroic Spirit, not in the standard sense of the term."

Harry looked over at Archer, who was looking pensively down at the street below. "Then what are you?"

"I can give you a clue. You asked me what I did to myself…well, I made a deal to save people I was in danger of not saving…with Alaya."

Harry's eyes widened. Alaya…the collective will of humanity, counterpart to Gaia, the consciousness of the planet. Both of which had access to one very dangerous power: the Counter-Force. Whenever a threat to the world arose that could endanger Gaia or humanity, the Counter-Force would intervene, using agents that dispatched any possible danger with extreme prejudice, often with horrendous casualties. Archer was one such agent, better known as a…

"Counter-Guardian," Harry whispered in horror. "Christ, Shirou…"

"Don't call me that," Archer said quietly. "Shirou is your friend. I am Archer."

"…How bad is it, being a Counter-Guardian?"

"…It's hell. I wanted to become a hero to stop people from crying…and yet, that's all I saw for eternity. I was even the cause of many tears. Being summoned into a Grail War, I felt, was my only chance of avoiding this fate. By killing Shirou Emiya before he has a chance to become me, by my own hand, I hoped to cause enough of a time paradox to erase myself from existence, even if only as a Counter-Guardian. But…here, at least, he has people who could potentially divert him from the path that leads to me. You don't know how much the Fuyuki Fire and Kiritsugu's ideals warped us both. Not truly. There are iterations of you on the Throne of Heroes, and while you had a self-sacrificing, even martyring nature, it was nowhere near as bad as what Shirou has. You know of the perils a hero faces. If our father knew what he did, I'm sure he would have tried to dissuade him."

"What about Rin? Sakura? Illya?"

Archer chuckled bitterly. "None of those worked out for me. Illya died a year after the Grail War, and I only learned about her relation to me shortly before she did. Sakura…I never realised how bad her home life was, and one day, she…I can't talk about it. I never even knew what she felt for me until Rin told me." He swallowed. "And Rin…well, we parted on bad terms, if only because of where my ideals were taking me. She told me to go drown in my ideals and die. And that's what happened. You see, my helping people for no apparent reason aroused suspicion and jealousy. A comrade of mine betrayed me, not out of spite but concern…and I was executed. And that's when I became a Counter-Guardian." He looked up at the stars with his silver eyes. "It's actually rather jarring to see things so different. Aside from you, there's Caster allying herself with you, Rin and Sakura being on better terms…hell, I barely knew Rin, or that she was a Magus, until the night I summoned Saber."

"And the taint on the Grail?"

"I still can't remember. But…there's a thought that scares me. I normally shouldn't be summoned to a Grail War…and yet, I was. Maybe the Grail holds a threat that requires a Counter-Guardian to deal with it. One thing I do remember is that Kirei Kotomine cannot be trusted."

"Rin and I guessed that already," Harry said. "Something about him sets me on edge. Plus, he fought against Kiritsugu Emiya. What about Lancer's Master?"

"All I remember is that the original Master, Bazett Fraga McRemitz, was found dead weeks after the Grail War ended," Archer said. "And she was missing her arm."

"Hmm…maybe I can find her. Or maybe Medea can." Harry called up Medea over their connection. "You hear that, Medea?"

"Hmm? No. Sorry, Harry, I'm currently doing what I can to expedite Sakura's worm-removal ritual. What is it?"

"Archer just supplied me with the name of Lancer's original Master, Bazett Fraga McRemitz. Are you able to find her?"

"Tricky, but I'll do what I can. Finding a single Magus in this city will be tricky, the proverbial needle in a haystack. Actually, Circe once made me create a spell to try and find one during my training." A gentle, nostalgic chuckle echoed down the link. "And remember that needles, in those days, weren't always made of metal. Bone and ivory was more common."

"Well, thanks for your help anyway, Medea. You all right? Not too lonely or anything?"

Another gentle chuckle down the link. "No. Just…hurry home once you're done. While I have no doubts as to Archer's competence, I still feel ill at ease with you being out in the field with Lancer and Berserker on the loose, never mind Assassin. And Archer…learning what he is has shaken me. It was a shock I hadn't felt for a long time."

"Okay. Thanks for your concern, Medea. I'll try to be back soon."

As he finished, Archer looked at him. "I'm still getting used to the fact that Caster's allied herself with you. I guess if she did find an understanding Master, she might be less twisted. You two seem close."

"Sort of. I just…I was wary of her, especially after seeing her memories…but I wanted to give her another chance. Plus, I thought, if she could help Sakura…"

"I see. I'm sorry, I just have little more than bad memories of her," Archer said. "I mean, I knew she and Kuzuki loved each other, but…she didn't seem to care about the people she hurt with her schemes. Maybe if she found the right person…maybe the good person she once was, before Jason, before Aphrodite, could come out. But…you do know there's a good chance she may not survive this Grail War? And even if we do succeed in dealing with the taint on the Grail, she may not last beyond that."

"One thing at a time, Archer," Harry said quietly, getting to his feet. "We deal with the most immediate threats first. Lancer, Assassin, and Gilgamesh."

Archer also got to his feet, only to freeze as his eyes focused in the distance. "Speak of the devil…Harry, I can see Lancer attacking someone. Namely, Kuzuki."

Harry frowned. The revelation that his colleague was a former assassin wasn't surprising in hindsight. The revelation that he had been Medea's Master when Archer was Shirou, and had turned a blind eye to Medea's harvesting of people's souls for mana, was perhaps more disturbing. Still, Harry decided to do something about it. "Archer, you feel up to fighting him again?"

Archer gave a sardonic grin in response. "Why not? I enjoy annoying him, given how he shoved that damned spear into my chest…"

Souichirou Kuzuki was an austere man, a man of simple tastes. He would be the first to admit that he was a hollow man, shaped by a group of assassins from a young age to become like them, ruthless and efficient. He wasn't a man of good or evil, just a weapon.

This wasn't to say that he didn't feel emotion, though it was rare that he did so. It was while he happened to look up at the stars, in contemplation as he walked home, that he saw the man in the blue spandex and wielding a rather phallic-looking crimson spear perched on a nearby building. And that was when things went wrong.

The man had tried to kill him with the spear. Kuzuki had decided to answer in kind, using his 'Snake' style to attack, grabbing the spear, and while the man had yanked it from his grasp, Kuzuki knew he had thrown the man off his game. But the way the blue-clad man moved…it was superhuman. Kuzuki had spotted the Joan girl accompanying Shirou Emiya earlier at school, and he knew that that the British girl, despite her slender frame, seemed to be a fighter. It was in the way she moved, in the way her eyes flickered around. Harry Potter also seemed to have something not dissimilar: the boy had seen combat.

In any case, the blue-clad man was wearing him down, though he could tell that the blue-clad man was enjoying himself. "You know, you're the best fight I've had since this Grail War started," he said with an Irish burr. "And considering you're just a normal guy, that's saying something. But, well, all good things come to an end. Sorry 'bout that."

Before the man could run him through, though, there was a loud crack!, as if from a gun, and Potter, along with a white-haired man in red, had appeared. "Did anyone order an express delivery arse-kicking?" Potter asked.

The man in blue brought up his spear in time to block an attack from the man in red, snarling, "Oh for…it's the bloody Archer who thinks he's a Saber, and the Witch's cicisbeo."

"The what?" Potter yelped.

"He means that you're Caster's boy toy," the man in red said.

"And proud of it," Potter retorted. He noticed Kuzuki, and walked over as the two began clashing at superhuman speed. "Hey, sorry about this. Mr Kuzuki, meet Archer, who doesn't like his real name being spread around, and Lancer, whose real name is Cú Chulainn."

Cú Chulainn? The famous Irish spearman? Kuzuki watched as the irritated man tried to fight his opponent, and said the first thing that came to mind. "I did not know that they possessed spandex tracksuits in ancient Ireland," he remarked with sardonic humour. It was rare that he made such a joke, to be sure, and he delivered it without a smile on his face.

"Hey, kid, you're not supposed to hobnob with the bloody witnesses!" Cú Chulainn snarled.

"The rules state that you can leave them alive with a memory wipe, not kill them, no matter what your Master thinks. Besides, Kuzuki here knows how to keep secrets better than most." Potter's emerald eyes flickered over to meet Kuzuki's, and Kuzuki knew that Potter knew, at least in broad terms, what he once was…

Harry, however, had an idea even as he exchanged words with the Lancer Servant. "Medea," he called via their link. "Can you use Rule Breaker on Lancer?"

"I need to get close, and my mana reserves will need to be replenished more often. Do you think it's worth the risk?"

"If he can help us find out who his real Master is, then yes," Harry said.

"Hey, I ain't arguing with you, personally," Cú Chulainn said as Archer blocked a thrust from him. "But my Master's calling the shots, and..."

"Atlas."

Both Archer and Cú Chulainn were caught under a dome of frozen space, before Medea emerged from the nearby shadows. "What the actual hell?!" Cú Chulainn snarled.

Medea approached from behind Cú Chulainn, bringing out the zig-zagging shape of Rule Breaker. "I'm probably going to regret this," she remarked, before she released Atlas…just before plunging the ritual dagger into the Lancer Servant's back.

He snarled and convulsed in pain, as the contract was severed, only for a new one to be made. As he sagged, Archer glared a little petulantly at Medea. "What?" Medea asked. "You were too close to him for me to use Atlas without it affecting you." The hooded Servant looked over at Kuzuki, who had been watching on with a vague air of bemusement, despite his usual grim stoicism. "What of him?"

"We'll deal with him later. Given what Archer told me, his silence will be easy to obtain," Harry said. "Did it work?"

Medea smirked, and removed her glove…showing a trio of Command Seals. "Now, Lancer, do I have to use one of these? Or will you play ball for now?"

Cú Chulainn, after a moment, grimaced. "I'd be more upset with you stabbing me in the back literally, but I'm getting the feeling you'll be better than my previous Master. Then again, he sets the bar pretty low, and I doubt he's going to leave things lying down. He already cut off my first Master's arm, stole the Command Seals from it. He's a monster. Though now I'm free of his Command Seals…I guess I can tell you who he is." He grinned sardonically, knowing the bombshell he was going to drop on them all. "He's that damned priest, the Overseer, Kirei Kotomine…"

CHAPTER 19 ANNOTATIONS:

Oh dear. Okay, we already knew this, but still…what a twist!

Now, I had this notion that Kuzuki would end up fighting alongside the heroes later on in the fic, and I had the notion that he would learn of it after being attacked by a Servant, only for Harry to save him. My original thought was Assassin, but given Snape's grudge against Harry, I can't see that ending with Snape retreating, and Gilgamesh would be hard to beat, so I decided on Lancer. Which gave the opportunity for this little twist. Not that everyone on the good guys' side are going to survive the coming battles, anyway…

No numbered annotations this time.