Assassin

Kiritsugu was surprised by the Servant that answered his summon, and so were Irisviel and the rest of the Einzbern family. After all, given that the catalyst used for the ritual was the Avalon scabbard, who would have thought that a Heroic Spirit that wasn't legendary King Arthur would appear. And, yet, here they were, staring at the Servant – who was without any doubts NOT the King of Knights – that had answered the call...

For one, the summoned Heroic Spirit was a girl in her early twenties, and a rather pretty one, with gray eyes and silvery somewhat-unruly hair that didn't quite reach her shoulders. And her clothes, those were definitely something of the modern era: black pants, held in place by an officer's belt, similarly-black pretty-long jacket, which was completely unbuttoned, and a shite dress-shirt underneath it.

"I'm Servant Assassin, are you my Master?" The girl asked in a tone that could be either bored or not caring at all, not even bothering to take her hands out of her jacket's pockets.

"Well... I suppose... I am." Kiritsugu finally managed to say. Internally, he was already throwing a good deal of the plans that had been made for the Fourth Grail War out as Assassin was most definitely NOT the class Einzberns had in mind when those plans had been created... On the other hand, since this girl was an Assassin, it was likely that she would have less troubles with him personally than, say, some noble-knight-type Saber would...

"A'right." The Assassin responded with a shrug as she leaned back against the wall, her hands still in her pockets, and waited for the magi in front of her to finish arguing - Jubstacheit von Einzbern was already throwing what amounted to a tantrum for not having the desired Servant summoned to represent His house in the upcoming War.

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This Assassin was a big anomaly, that was obvious the very moment she was summoned despite the catalyst used in the ritual being an almost guaranteed ticket to get King Arthur. But, of course, her anomalies didn't stop there... Based on her clothes and her manners, Assassin was someone from the modern times, yet, the records had showed no one that looked like her who even had a smallest of chances to ascend to the Throne of Heroes.

And then there were her stats. Even though she was an Assassin – supposedly a class that was never meant to fight against other Servants directly – it looked like she'll be able to take on a Lancer or a weaker Saber head on. And actually win. At least for as long as her opponents didn't use their Noble Phantasms...

That, and Kiritsugu had been correct when he had guessed that Assassin would be a better partner for him than a holier Heroic Spirit. Indeed, she had no problems with his philosophy of sacrificing ten to save a thousand. Or she just didn't care about that... Regardless of that, even with the better dynamics between the two of them, Irisviel was still going to be Assassin's minder and proxy Master during the War. That was the plan.

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Lancer was waiting in the old docks of Fuyuki city for some Servant to answer the challenge he had issued a couple of minutes ago by flaring his prana for anyone not completely 'blind' to see. And he needn't have waited for long as another couple of minutes later a pair of white-haired women entered the area. One of those two was without any doubt an Einzbern homunculus, which meant that she was a Master. Thus, the other girl had to be a Heroic Spirit, even if she didn't look much like one.

"Welcome. I've spent the whole day searching the city, but everyone simply hides away in their little holes..." Diarmuid ua Duibhne said as he walked into the middle of the soon-to-be battlefield. "You alone have accepted my offer." Raising his eyes, he did his best to gauge the powerlevels of his opponent. "You seem to be quite powerful,.. Though, I must confess, I don't think I might be able to guess your class correctly."

"I, however, observe you to be a Lancer." The Assassin replied. Then again, what else could a man carrying not one but two spears be?

"You are indeed correct." He confirmed. "I'm the Lancer of this war. Now, I would like to know who my opponent tonight will be?" The gray-haired girl in a suit shrugged, her hands still in the pockets of her jacket.

"I s'pose there is no harm in telling you my class... I'm Assassin of this war,.." Then she leveled her eyes at him, for once getting out of her bored-by-the-world persona. "...And I'm going to kill you."

"Assassin, huh?" Lancer repeated, quite surprised to see by the fact that she was out there in the open, instead of stalking in the shadows like proper Assassin was supposed to be. "Very well..." He took a few steps as he got himself into his fighting stance. His opponent to got ready for the fight, though she still kept her hands in her jacket's pockets.

"Also, pretty boy, I don't discriminate." Assassin commented. "Even if you have a body of a porn star, I will still kill you." Diarmuid sighed, placing the red spear of his onto his shoulder.

"Sorry, it's been a curse since birth. There is nothing I can do about it." He said. "You can blame my origin or the fact that you were born a woman."

"Whatever." The silver-haired girl replied with a shrug.

"Alright." The master of spears said. "Let us begin." Assassin replied nothing, opting to act instead. She crossed the distance between them with surprising speed and tried to land a powerful kick onto Lancer's chest, which he had to block with bother of his spears. And he was still pushed back a couple meter from the sheer power of the attack. "You aren't half bad." He commented, before launching a counterattack. Yet, it didn't work as Assassin had simply jumped out of the spears' range.

Then she pulled out an RPG-launcher from somewhere and fired it in the general direction of Lancer, not really bothering to aim. This, of course, caused the master of spear to raise an eyebrow as such an attack was destined to fail against any Servant. He was proven wrong a moment later when Assassin switcher her weapon for a pistol and show the grenade. Only his quick reaction allowed Diarmuid to escape the resulting shower of deadly shrapnel with just a few scratches. And a moment later he had to dodge the rest of the clip. Damn it, Assassin was already proving herself to be far more trouble than he had expected her to be.

Meanwhile, the silver-haired beauty was once again closing in on him, attempting to land one of her overpowered kicks on him. It didn't quite work as this time Lancer was dodging instead of blocking. He was forced to evade three more kicks stringed together into what looked like a move from that strange thing called 'break-dancing', before he finally managed to force Assassin away from himself. Loathe he to admit it, she was a dangerous fighter, even unarmed – fast and nimble, while still having an overwhelming power behind her attacks. And he still had not a single idea about her identity. It was frustrating...

"That's enough of fun for you, Lancer." A magically-amplified voice announced, seemingly coming from every direction. "You can use your Noble Phantasm." Diarmuid gained a somewhat-bloodthirsty smirk upon hearing that.

"Of course, Master." He said, before dropping his shorter, yellow spear on the ground. Then he had the cloth wrapped around his other spear disappear... Assassin responded by pulling a damn minigun from somewhere and leveling it against him.

A second later, Lancer was forced to dodge a stream of bullets that effortlessly shredded the crates behind him to bits. And, given that his opponent was faster than him, as long as she was firing, closing in on her was a suicide. Thankfully, the empty cases piling on the ground testified that Assassin's ammunition wasn't endless and sooner or later she'll run out of bullets to shoot at him. He just needed to wait.

And, given the stream of lead the minigun was producing, it was bound to run out of ammo very quickly. Which it did, roughly twenty seconds after Assassin had first pulled the trigger. This was the moment the Lancer had been waiting for, and he wasn't wasting it – as soon as the stream of bullets ended, he charged at the silver-haired girl of his enemy as fast as he could,

He tried to cut her up with his spear as soon as he got in range, but she had blocked his attack with the minigun – quite a feat, considering that the thing weighted probably just as much as she herself did. And when a moment Diarmuid tired to attack her from a completely different side, his spear once again was blocked by the machine gun's barrels.

Here, the Lancer made a mistake of staying too close to Assassin for too long and was promptly sent flying away with a powerful kick to his stomach. A second later, there was a follow-up that came in the form of the minigun being smashed into his chest like a sledgehammer. And, damn, that hurt, Servant's toughness or not.

Having dropped her minigun in favor of more speed, the silver-haired girl continued attacking Lancer with a kick after kick, and for the time being he could do nothing but defend himself from the onslaught. Not always successfully too... One such kick that was especially powerful had sent the master of spears all the way across the area with him landing none too gently into an empty cargo container... Too bad for Assassin, she had also sent him right where his second spear was.

Now Diarmuid had both of his Noble Phantasms back and, also, he had made some observations about his opponent's fighting style. Assassin, despite being quite geed with firearms, seemed to prefer close combat, and in one she always favored powerful kicks, practically never using her hands.

With his plan for the next part of the battle conceived, Lancer charged at the silver-haired girl, swinging his spears in wide arcs to keep her at a distance while simultaneously pushing her back towards the still-intact containers across their little battlefield. His plan was rather simple: pin her to something with Gae Buidhe – so that just in case the later part of the plan fails, Assassin would still have an unhealable bleeding wound – and then stab and cut her with Gae Dearg till she succumbs to her wounds and dies. While was not exactly a knightly thing to do, but he needed to win this fight for his Master.

And so far his plan seemed to work: the Crimson Rose of Exorcism had a greater range of attack than Assassin's legs, so she couldn't really counterattack unless she was okay with getting cut by it. And since she was yet to discovered what powers exactly the red spear had, she was understandably cautious. Which just allowed Lancer to push her towards where he wanted her to be. The silver-haired beauty seemed to realize what was going on, but seemed to be unable to really do anything about it.

Finally, after a bit of a lengthy exchange, Diarmuid finally got his opponent to where he wanted her to be, but when he went to execute the 'pin her to something' part of his plan, something had went very very wrong. And the first sign of that was the lack of blood on the spear's blade even if had supposedly pierced right through Assassin's forearm. The small smirk appearing on the silver-haired girl's face was the second sign.

Still, Lancer tried to continue his attack, only have Assassin twist in a way that seemed to be rather impossible for a human and catch his Gae Dearg with her unpinned hand in an iron grip. Then world went to hell as conic spears made from coiled stripes of strange black-ish metal exploded from Assassin's left arm. And being caught by surprise with this, Diarmuid ua Duibhne, despite managing to avoid being screwed to death, still ended up with quite a few wounds on his chest and stomach.

And he also had to let go of his spears, meaning that right now he was wounded and unarmed, against an opponent that had the aforementioned weapons, could pull firearms out of thin air and, apparently, could turn her very body into a death-trap. Not exactly a good situation...

However before anything else could have happened, everyone's attention was drawn to a descending flying ox-pulled chariot that was spewing lightning in all direction. Apparently, their little battle had attracted another Servant...

Assassin

True identity: codename Shiki
Series: "Okitenemuru"
Age: unknown
Sex: Female

Alignment: Lawful Neutral / Nominal Hero
Strength: B
Endurance: C
Agility: A
Mana: D
Luck: D+
Independent Action: B+
Magic Resistance: E - Has no magic resistance to speak of.
Eye of the Mind (false): D+
Battle Continuation: C
Clairvoyance: D / C - Shiki seems to have heightened senses and can use her familiar to spy for her.
Presence Concealment: C+ - Unless fighting, Shiki is indistinguishable from a normal human.
Projectiles (firearms): B+ - Shiki is skilled with many firearms, despite being close-quarters fighter.
Self-Modification: C* - See Noble Phantasm "Lumeterius Tactical Memory Alloy"
Vitrification: B++ - Shiki will shrug off majority of mental influences, as long as they don't touch her Berserk Button...

Noble Phantasms:
Lumeterius Tactical Memory Alloy: C++, passive. A strange substance that a good part of Shiki's body is composed of. This greatly increases her strength, agility and toughness. The alloy also responds to her mental commands and allows her to reform (at least) her limbs in accordance with her wishes. Even if they aren't connected to her body. This means, among other things, that Shiki can reassemble herself should she lose a limb or two.
Hyperspace arsenal: D+, item collection. A collection of weapons that includes everything from knives, pistols and hand grenades to an infantry-portable minigun and an RPG.
Debius: E++ creature. Shiki's personal familiar that is a pretty damn big snowy owl. It can be used for information gathering or as extra means of attack on weaker opponents. It seems that this owl can handle performing other, more complex, tasks for its master, but there are no confirmations of that.