After Saber and Iri left the docks, they returned to their car and Iri drove them home. They discussed the events of the battle. Of particular concern was Saber's wound, followed immediately by Archer's ploy. Iri hadn't initially understood the subtext involved in his actions, but when it was explained to her she was worried at first, then relieved.
When Saber questioned her as to why she wasn't more upset, she had responded,
"He was smart enough to send that message that way, so he is smart enough to understand the costs and benefits of doing so. After all, it's not like you would have listened to him if he had walked up and told us we were acting foolishly, right?"
Saber couldn't word a response.
"That said, blunt as it was, I don't see him as a priority to deal with immediately. By no means should we trust him, but his message was true and clear."
Saber mumbled some words.
"What was that, Saber?"
"If that's how you feel, Irisviel, I will abide by your judgement."
Iri beamed.
"Well, that said, tomorrow will be a new day, and we can play around a bit more before things get serious again," she almost sang as she rounded another corner at breakneck speed.
After a quick conversation about how Iri learned to drive, they reached an open expanse of road. Saber couldn't help but smile at her childish innocence.
"We're almost home, my adorable King of Kights!"
"Iri- tha- hey!"
Iri's giggling erupted.
Well, if she can show that smile with a small swat at my pride, I can allow it. Still, we'll see how adorable Archer thinks I am when I carve the word on his vulgar hide . . .
All thoughts like this stopped when she detected the presence of another Servant.
"Irisviel, stop the car!"
A minute later and they were facing down the Servant Caster on the road, listening to his ranting. Saber might have tolerated such insolence for a few minutes had the early evening gone differently, but she was already reaching her limits.
" -as such, Holy Virgin, this Gilles de Rais will restore your memory to you or die trying!"
"I have been humiliated enough this night. Are all the Servants in War save Berserker and Lancer naught but clowns?"
Caster flinched as if slapped.
"I apologize if I have offended, my Mistress! Even if you are not in your right mind, I will strive to conserve your pride! I shall hasten to smite that foul and heretical Archer who dared stain you with such humiliation! Simply relax, and leave-"
Saber was already moving, a bolt of blue in the night.
" -it- "
She was on him in mere seconds, her blade coming down on his neck.
One less clown in this War!
" -to- "
And with a mystical sound, she was gone.
" -me?" Caster blinked, then eyed Irisviel.
She recoiled.
"Secure our escape!"
As the Command Seal vanished from his hand, Saber burst out of thin air in front of Kiritsugu between him and the twelve swords. Her own blade was raised, and she had an empty soulless look in the instant she landed and raised her guard.
A look she was snapped out of as the twelve swords converged on a point an inch in front of her and noisily clattered to the ground.
"Go on, old man, get out of here."
Saber blinked.
Kiritsugu didn't need to be told twice. He ran, Maiya in tow.
Saber slid between them and Archer, her expression rapidly changing. Archer smiled.
"Yo, Saber! Fancy meeting you here like this."
Her face settled on outrage.
"CLOWN!"
Excalibur came down on Archer, but Kanshou and Bakuya came up to meet it.
Kotomine Kirei watched as the man who could only be Emiya Kiritsugu escaped below. He had initially rushed down the staircase in pursuit, but did not reveal his presence once he got to the bottom. He had dared not interrupt Archer's scheme, as he had no desire to trigger the wrath of the red Servant. After all, his bemusement was bad enough. Still, he had an Assassin trail the two now that he had a solid lead.
Saber's attacks were rapid and merciless. However, that did not mean they were fast and deadly.
Archer deftly countered all the incoming blows and let loose a few of his own. However, his long term strategy for fighting Saber - his painstakingly theorycrafted, decades-in-the-making plan was built on one assumption:
He was prepared to take on Saber when she was at full strength.
However, she was not at full strength right now. She was conserving energy, unable to use one hand, and was fighting with a completely alien style to him. While he was prepared to take heavy blows every second on his heavy blades, none came. Where he was ready to constantly absorb her power by letting his blades get knocked away and projecting replacements, his grip barely shifted when he parried.
Her sword bounced off of his every time their blades clashed; a phenomenon he had spent days, even weeks of thought pondering how to prevent. To absorb her momentum, to deny her that small about of assistance in pulling back her blade for a subsequent strike, was just one layer of the traps he had built into his entire style of swordplay.
Everything about his style of combat, from the weapons he chose, to the methods he used to engage, to the timing of his strikes, was honed to maximize the probability of an opportunity.
Not a mistake. Saber didn't make mistakes.
Not an opening. Saber didn't have openings.
He had taken a risk with the opening gambit for this fight. He didn't know if Saber had shaken off the 'Command Seal trance' by the time his blades vanished. As she had described it to him years ago, for those seconds a surprise Command Seal is in full effect, the Servant's free will and very consciousness are suspended. Unless the given Command is utter anathema, in which case with enough magic resistance a Servant might be able to hold back. Otherwise, they will react ideally to any stimulus and commit any action necessary for a -perfect- response to the command they were given. As he had forced Kiritsugu's hand with a bluff, the 'Super-Saber' that had appeared saw the incoming blades, deduced they were no threat, and did not react to them at all. By dismissing the Master offhand, dissolving the projections, and showing no intention of actually pursuing them, Archer caused the Command Seal's influence to vanish faster than it normally would have.
Saber 'woke up' seamlessly, and on realizing who was in front of her, went into a bit of a rage.
All that was meaningless in the face of the battle he now fought. This was a necessary sacrifice. By all means, if he had a weakness to Lancer, an alliance with Saber would have been the tactically advantageous thing to do-
-which was why it was the one thing he couldn't do. He had shown Kiritsugu that he had a tactical mind. As such, logically, this entire encounter was pointless. It gave him no advantage. If he beat Saber, Lancer would come after him. He had shown emotion, and plucked what should be Kiritsugu's greatest, most secret fears directly from his mind. He had supposedly just revealed a card in his hand, while amateurishly letting his emotions control him.
If he wanted to beat Emiya Kiritsugu, he had to confound him. Act inefficiently. Be unpredictable. Kiritsugu had only one chance to counter this, and that was by using the same tactic.
On someone who could ostensibly read his mind.
Yes, Kiritsugu was out of the way, for now. He'd dare not show his face in the open until he had a chance to consider his options. All that aside, he was now left dealing with an angry cat.
An angry, crippled, ornery cat.
He said as much out loud.
"We'll see what's left when this cat is done with you, fiend!"
He wanted to sigh. It was too easy. The provocation, the fighting. He knew, however, that if he pushed her too hard in the fight she'd definitely surprise him (and probably end him).
"I don't see what you're so upset about, this time. It's not your fault your Master was stupid enough to get stuck between an enemy Servant and the exit. Though, I guess you should have kept a better eye on him . . ."
"RAUGH!" Redoubled strength.
"This isn't even fun anymore. Go kill Lancer, and come back when you're worth fighting."
"This is all the power I need to deal with you!" Ironically, she's probably correct.
"I respectfully disagree," he replied without the barest hint of respect. "I just had a wonderful idea- if you won't go finish your tryst with Lancer, I'll just kill him my-"
"YOU WILL DO NO SUCH THING!"
Archer went flying as Hammer of the Wind King set him aloft. Saber was in the air right behind him, ready to impale him mid-flight before he hit the ground. Considering the physics involved in that fact, Archer came to one inescapable conclusion.
She's really, really mad.
Before she reached him, she found herself blocking three blades coming at her out of thin air from near Archer's body. As they killed her momentum and she landed, six more appeared. Archer, half-embedded in the wall, just smiled as twelve more manifested in front of him.
"Like I said, you're boring. Go away."
"I've dealt with more than twelve swords pointed at me before."
He held her gaze for a beat, then closed his eyes and shrugged. Not taking that as an opening, she was still meeting his gaze when he reopened them and voiced:
"I have created over a thousand blades."
The pressure of Unlimited Blade Works inside him grew, as he rapidly generated copies of his chosen blade-of-the-day in his mind.
He allowed twelve more blades to appear before he started firing. One at a time, then two at a time, then three. Not all of them came from straight angles. As he invoked his Reality Marble further, he gained various benefits to his standard abilities. The first line merely gave him a prana discount as it reduced the thickness of the 'boundary' between his internal world and the greater World. Each other verse in the spell provided various passive or active benefits. He didn't need to invoke the entire poem to deploy his Reality Marble, but for maximum longevity and effect, it was preferred.
The line he had used just now merely gave him a speed boost in projection. He knew what Saber would have been capable of defending against at her best. As she was now, she'd not last twelve seconds . . . if she stubbornly refused to retreat.
She tried to persevere, valiantly. She took numerous superficial wounds. She could not take so much as a step forward. Just as she thought she might take a more serious wound, the barrage stopped and she saw the last trace of Archer vanish as he dematerialized.
As she lowered her guard, she didn't howl. She didn't scream, and she didn't curse. She turned, waited for her bleeding to stop, then dissipated her armor and started walking.
He had toyed with her completely. He had spared her Master. He had spared her other Master. Her pride had refused to let her see that for what it was. He once again appeared before her and flaunted her helplessness in her face. He let her Master escape again, and . . . he had spared her. She had been defeated. Pride caused her to press the attack, pride caused her to refuse to back down, and pride had shown her the bitter truth.
And Archer had no interest in defeating her pride.
He at no point had taken overt, unprovoked action to harm her or her charges. Even now, he had given her a chance to walk away. She was angry, but from a certain point of view, he had been (as much as she was loathe to say it), honorable. On some level, by holding on to her cursed wound from Lancer, she was being unfair to the other Servants that wished a fair match. It was the only explanation she could come up with that made sense.
He had used her anger against her again and again. He had rubbed her face in her own mistakes and gave her chance after chance to see it for herself. He was so so much like Merlin that she wanted to disembowel him.
She smiled wistfully.
So he audaciously thinks I still have things to learn. Very well. I'll prove him wrong and not give him the satisfaction of seeing me in anger again. When I dispatch him, it will be with proper decorum. I will not disrespect him by underestimating him a third time.
But all the respect and decorum in the world will not save his neck from me for forcing me to leave Irisviel alone . . .