114: Sometimes, the direct approach is best.
As we head back to the Argo, I do my best to wrestle with the twin senses of disappointment and relief I've acquired here.
We failed to recruit Euryale. That's a big problem, since it means my 'brainwash Reid' plan is doomed. And in the end… I can't go back for her. Not for some girl I don't know in the slightest, whose first response to diplomacy was to brainwash me and try to suck my blood. If I end up dying beyond this point- no, that's wrong. That's thinking like Alter Ego, and I won't do it.
Besides, this trip does have one positive result - knowing that we've got a freaking Grand Servant here is a huge weight off my shoulders. In France, we were stuck desperately scurrying from town to town searching for anyone with decent firepower, so the reveal that Benkei is so strong is a nice change of pace. In fact, it's such a change of pace that the obvious question has to be asked-
"With this kind of advantage, how about we just go for the throat?" Nobunaga asks.
She makes a pretty good point. "You mean just float Benkei and you up there and wipe out Heracles and Reid while they're too distracted with each other? It doesn't sound that bad to me."
"No, that's a careless move to make," says Jason. "Grand Servants may be an entire level beyond normal Servants, but just like an exceptional human can close the gap with an unexceptional Servant, an exceptional Servant can close the gap with an unexceptional Grand Servant."
"...That's right. I wasn't injured by Lady Nobunaga earlier, but it was a close thing. I was forced to sacrifice all of my clones just to handle the opening of her Reality Marble," Benkei admits.
"Wait, you can make clones?" I ask.
"Right, you were already unconscious at that point," Benkei says. "To clarify, I possess three Noble Phantasms. [Benkei Butsu] allows me to produce between one and seven clones at random, [Eighth Implement] allows me to confiscate a foes weapon for a short time, and [Pilgrimage of the Five Hundred Arhat] summons a number of Arhat to carry a target away to the Pure Land."
"So it just sends the target straight to heaven?" I ask, and get a nod in response.
"...I don't like it." Jason says. "Heracles ascended to godhood after his death, so he might actually be weak to it, but something about just sending five hundred guys to drag him to enlightenment… It seems like the sort of ordeal Heracles specializes in overcoming."
"In any case, if Senpai is right and that storm is where Heracles is right now, it's probably out of the safe range of our mystic codes." Mash notes.
"Alright, let's keep that as plan B then. It wasn't what I meant by going for the throat anyway," Nobunaga says. "Why'd you jump to Heracles, Subaru? The one we've got to Okehazama the crap out of is Alter Ego."
…Ah.
"I guess… I just assumed we'll inevitably end up fighting Heracles anyway? That's always how these things seem to turn out…" I mumble - and then I shake my head. "No, that's wrong. I was… probably subconsciously looking for an opportunity to bail Reid out."
"Hah? Didn't you say you hated the guy?" Jason looks at me like I'm an idiot.
"I do hate him. But…" I sigh and massage my temples. "No, there's no explanation I can really give. It's wrapped up in a whole bunch of complicated stuff I don't really understand yet, and I probably won't understand it as long as I'm still on Earth."
Once or twice I wondered if my tie with Flugel might be something like reincarnation, but… that doesn't feel right. It's not gross enough, for a guy like him.
"Well, it can't be helped, then!" Nobunaga shouts, clapping me on the back. "Let's move on to how we're gonna kill your evil clone."
"Ugh… where do we even start with that guy?" I ask.
"How about we start with what I've got?" Cu Chulainn asks, from his spot leaning against the boat.
"Cu Chulainn!" Mash says. "You're done with your augury already?"
"Sure am. Judging by the lack of a goddess with you, I'd say things went worse for you?" He asks, a small smirk on his face.
"Even if Georgios said he might have trouble staying civil with a pagan goddess… we should have brought him with us and left Benkei here to guard you," I say with a sigh.
"No, we really should have just left all the guys here and just had Mash and me go," Nobbu says. "I can't believe you all got charmed…"
Ugh… I don't want to remember that. I like silver haired elves! And also Rem! Julius's lolimancer allegations are just a joke! A joke!
"P-putting that aside… what have you got for us, Cu?" I ask.
He stretches as he moves out of his leaning pose. "So, to start with, that [Alter Ego] - he's something called a [High Servant]. It's kind of contemplated, but to simplify it a bunch - his basic spirit origin wasn't enough on its own to give him existence, so whatever third party summoned him crammed material from a few Divine Spirits into him to make him manifest properly."
"Seriously!?" I shout. In what world is something as insane as that even possible!?
"Yeah. It sounds pretty outlandish, but Divine Spirits are already pretty nebulous existences in the current era. Shearing off a portion of them to mix it into a greater whole isn't easy, but if you're the type of high spec mage that can piece together Spirit Origins like that in the first place, then it's not that much further of a step to use a Divine Spirit for the job." The Caster explains. "As far as his components go… well, there's no way to sugarcoat it, one part is some offshoot of you, kid."
Right, I haven't mentioned it… "Yeah, I already know that part. He showed up in my dreams last night, so I basically understand that part - I don't really think he's an 'evil' offshoot of me, so much as he's a version of me that got tricked by a certain witch," I say, raising a hand to massage my brow. "Basically, he's an idiot, but he's an inhuman monster of an idiot. That's something in our advantage, I guess - he doesn't actually want to hurt you guys, or to destroy the world. His goal is possessing me and taking my role at Chaldea."
A brief silence follows.
Finally, Jason speaks. "Dude…"
"...Please don't hide things like that, Senpai," Mash says, a disappointed frown on her face.
Somehow, I resist the urge to look away from her and turn it into a joke. "Sorry, it slipped my mind in all of the chaos," I say. "I didn't really mean to hide it."
She gives me a forced smile "R-right, I guess this morning was a bit…"
From the side of my vision, I see Nobunaga's eyes narrow slightly at our exchange, but she doesn't say anything.
"-Well, to return to the subject, Alter Ego's other components are whatever god cursed the Fuyuki Grail, and Odin," Cu Chulainn says. "To be honest, even figuring out the first part was a fluke, but I'm kind of a specialist when it comes to Odin."
"Um, do you mean because you can invoke him in one of your Noble Phantasms?" Mash asks.
("Wait, he has more than one?" Nobbu tilts her head in confusion.)
"Well, there's that, but… ah, screw it, there's no way to avoid it!" He laughs. "I'm a Pseudo-Servant."
"...Huh?" So Cu Chulainn's got a human vessel? "What does that have to do with-?"
I cut myself off, because it clicks in my mind. A Pseudo-Servant is someone who can't normally manifest, possessing a human vessel. There's no rule saying the human has to be from the modern era - in fact, Zhuge Liang's vessel was someone from a decade ago. But this has got to be cheating. Surely, choosing a vessel from all the way back in the tail end of the Age of the Gods has to be against the rules! "A Pseudo-Servant whose vessel qualifies as a Heroic Spirit on his own… that can't be allowed, right!?"
"Senpai, a Pseudo-Servant is… what, exactly?" Mash asks.
"We probably shouldn't explain it in detail right now, but iIt's pretty similar to a Demi-Servant," Nobunaga says.
"Or like the living servants created by the Watcher class," I add helpfully.
"Since when was that a thing!?" The Archer shouts.
"ANYWAY," Cu shouts in a desperate attempt to get us back on track, "the upshot of all this is that I can actually do something about the guy. Odin's connection to Alter Ego is pretty weak, so if we can get control of… four leylines or so, I think I can probably just yank the Odin component of his Spirit Origin out and take it for myself. From that point, I'd give Alter Ego a day at most before he just caves in on himself and dies."
"That-!" Won't work, I almost say. He'll just [Return by Death] and come after us.
Except, that's also a win condition. Benkei can mop the floor with anyone of a lower tier than Heracles, and the very fact that Badbaru hasn't sent anyone to back the guy up against Reid tells me he has no one else on that level.
"...No, it's actually a pretty good plan." I admit. "If we can force Alter Ego to commit to a fight before Heracles or Reid wins, it's just about a guaranteed win."
"Heh, so it's territory domination, huh?" Nobunaga says, grinning. "Just leave it all to me-!"
"Hang on, did you goobers just forget about Alter Ego's Noble Phantasm?" Jason asks. "I'm not sure why he hasn't shown up in person yet, but if he does, then we might just end up making him stronger."
Yeah. That Reality Marble is a real concern. If I had to guess, it's some kind of fusion between the corruptive effects of the Fuyuki Grail's curse and [Return by Death]. But, since he hasn't shown himself yet… "We've got an answer to it," I say. "I don't know what it is, but… one of us has to have some way to counter his Reality Marble. That's the only reason he'd be holding back like this."
A moment of silence follows.
"...[Gae Bolg], maybe?" Cu says. "The wounds it inflicts can't be healed."
"Wait, you've still got that thing?" I ask. "Didn't you say it was gonna disappear at some point?"
He shrugs. "A projection usually would. That Archer was really something else - I haven't noticed any kind of degradation beyond what you'd normally see from a Noble Phantasm in the modern era.
"That's not it. He doesn't need to heal if he just produces a new body every time," Jason says. "Oi, Master, are you packing some way to deal with him?"
"I…" I'm not sure. "[Sin Eater], maybe? I was able to handle the mud in Fuyuki with it. But that doesn't feel like a full counter."
"Ah," Mash mutters. "Speaking of Fuyuki… could it be [Pilgrimage of the Five Hundred Arhat]? The difference between 'being brought to heavan' and dying - I think we talked about that, right?"
Oh crap, that's it, isn't it? "...Natsuki Subaru is weak to being transported to other worlds."
I almost forgot, the reason Benkei was brought here is to counter Satella, isn't it? Alter Ego, who has destroyed the world in this singularity hundreds of times - that's got to be the reason why, instead of some rider, a monk specializing in sending souls to heaven was summoned.
"Wahaha, that makes things easy, doesn't it!?" Nobbu laughs. "We don't need to worry about risking forces by splitting them off to secure the leylines. We can just leave a Benkei clone at each island!"
"...You know, I can't control how many copies of me appear when I use [Benkei Butsu]," The monk says.
"It's fine! We'll just reroll until it works! There's no shame in RNG manipulation when the fate of the world is on the line!" She laughs.
There's some kind of joke to be made here about save scumming… but for some reason I feel like it'll make me puke, so I'll avoid it.
A/N: Reminder that Shirou's projections explicitly do NOT disappear until he dismisses them, per the Visual Novel. Any claims otherwise are incorrect fanon.