Chapter 64

Archer held his stance as Rider stepped towards him, advancing forward like she had all the time in the world.

*BOOM*

Without warning, her hand jerked upwards and fired at Archer, three bullets flying from the muzzle of the Desert Eagle in quick succession, heading for his head, left leg and right lung respectively.

Archer's reinforced eyes were just enough to catch the path of the bullets even with the lack of pre-movements by Rider, the pure white blade of Bakuya sparking as the bullet scraped past it, barely deflecting the bullet from his right lung, while the black metal of Kanshou blocked the projectile to his head directly, the momentum of the bullet pushing his arm even with the muscles fully tensed until the metal smacked on his forehead with no small force. His left leg just barely shifted aside as the bullet only took a small chunk of his calf from the sides instead crashing straight through his leg and shattering the bone.

Before the bullet blocked by Kanshou even dropped halfway to the ground, Rider was already in front of him and driving the black tip of the mop into his solar plexus, too close for him to block or dodge. Reacting as quickly as he could, he reinforced his stomach even as he swung down Bakuya in an attempt to cut the mop in half with the black sword.

*THOOM*

He was blown away before the blade's edge could touch the mop, the blow sending his entire body flying over the walls of the open air range and above the targets. Performing several somersaults in mid-air, he managed to gauge the right moment to land on his feet, skidding on the dirt for a few meters before he stopped.

Jumping out of the range lightly, Rider landed opposite Archer, watching him coldly as he coughed up blood from the blow to his stomach. Even with the reinforcement to his body in that area, it was still impossible to completely avoid injury from a full-powered blow to his torso head on.

"It seems that you really are an Archer, and an arrogant one at that, to be putting on airs of being capable at close combat while holding those two swords. Rather than that, you might survive longer if you stick to long range combat."

Archer smirked even while blood trickled down the corner of his mouth and dripped on the ground, straightening his back while ignoring the pain radiating from the blow to his stomach.

"Is that what you think? I'll show you that these two swords aren't just for show then."

Earlier, he had been caught by surprise from Rider's sudden attack, but after taking a hit from her, he had successfully gauged how strong her physical parameters were. It seemed that while she was fast and strong, as the blow to his stomach proved, she wasn't so strong as to kill him with one direct hit, nor was she so fast that he couldn't even reinforce the area before her mop landed. In short, it was something he could probably handle.

*BANG, BANGBANG*

This time, she dashed forward while firing shots from her handgun, the shots resounding like thunder in their quiet surroundings. The bullets made their way to Archer in the blink of an eye, their paths designed to cut off Archer's routes of escape like a cage, but it was all for naught.

He had walked across countless battlefields during his time alive, and after he died he had walked across even more until the battlefield became the only place he could recognize as he killed and shed blood in the name of "justice". In all these experiences he had accumulated, he had frequently met enemies wielding firearms, and after perhaps 50 conflicts involving them, he had devised sufficient counter measures to deal with even the most skilled sharpshooters and gunslingers he met. This was his ability, Mind's Eye (True), the grasping of the logic of battle through countless years of experience, learning and training.

More swords appeared out of thin air as they blocked the bullets as a wall of steel in front of Archer, the bullets flattened when they impacted against the thick steel, though the force of the bullets did make the thick swords embedded in the ground tremble. Without pausing in her dash, Rider jumped upwards and aimed her Desert Eagle downwards at Archer.

She was met with the sight of six fully nocked arrows on the massive black bow that he used, the tips glowing red as they became infused with mana.

*Schwip*

The arrows cut through the air as they were released, the wind whistling past the shaft as they left a red trail of mana in the air that glistened slightly in the night. Twisting her body, Rider grasped the end of the red mop firmly with both hands, and swung.

"CLEAN!"

A burst of water streamed out of the gray fiber of the mop end as it went from left to right, the water turning into a wall of liquid that smashed into the arrows streaking in towards her. In a flash, they were swallowed up by the clear water, and then detonated before they reached Rider. As expected of a top-class maid, to be capable of cleaning up dangerous objects while mid-air.

The water evaporated as the arrows detonated, Rider plunging through the steam to meet Emiya as he jumped at her with swords in hand, the black and white metal of both blades clashing with the shaft of the mop as Rider blocked his strikes while handling the mop like a staff, twirling it in her hands to deflect and parry, then using the openings in his style to pierce through with the mop like a spear, the blunt end of the mop blurring as it shot through to aim at the joints and sensitive spots of his body. Yet, his blades were always there to intercept and counter her by attacking even faster than her, his sword almost at her neck, hand or torso whenever she fell for the false openings he showed her.

Unable to get the upper hand over each other, sparks flew as their weapons clashed against each other, blows exchanged at an inhumanly fast rate, the projection of twin swords crafted by the blacksmith to reach the realm of the gods, and the Mop of Selection that was reputed to be the weapon of the true maid that would bring cleanliness to Britain, both vying for dominance in mortal combat between the two Servants.

The scope of the handgun crashed against Kanshou as Archer pushed the barrel astray, the bullet fired from it barely missing as the wind from the bullet grazed Archer's cheek, a small cut forming along the bullet's path. The mop stabbed downwards to his foot, but instead he dodged it and lashed out his right leg in a kick towards Rider's left knee, the steel toed boots descending on the black tights hiding her pale skin.

*BANG*

The recoil of the gun drove her elbow sideways as she leaned her entire body, the momentum of her movements allowing her to lift her left leg lift into the air until it was like she was doing a standing split, then she cartwheeled to avoid the two blades slicing through the air at her legs. The black maid skit with a lace white apron front flipped up to reveal the mature black bikini bottom she wore, but Archer was unfortunately too preoccupied at the moment to register the fact in his mind.

While she cartwheeled out of his reach and then some more to create distance, he dematerialized his blades and reached into the repository of weapons in his mind, bringing forward the hunting sword that would track down its prey to the ends of the world.

"I am the bone of my sword."

The sword manifested in his hands, his hand opening to receive the traced sword, a pitch black weapon with metal edges curling slightly outward around a thin core ending in a conical point, the semicircle pommel the only thing truly preserved in the altered weapon. Aiming at Rider, who had just come to a stop and was currently in the middle of doing something to her black handgun, he took aim and pulled back until the bowstring was past his cheek, then synced his breath with his entire body, the bowstring like his body, drawn and taut.

"Hah."

The fingers holding the string released, the arrow enveloped in red light as it quickly reached immense speeds as it accelerated to its max speed of Mach 10. Even if it missed, Hrunting, Hound of the Red Plains, would provide him with enough time to trace the next few swords that he needed to use by hounding her constantly.

*sh-BOOOOM*

Just as Hrunting got within a meter of Rider, a blast of pure water consumed it and utterly destroyed the traced Noble Phantasm, the stream of raging liquid continuing forward like a laser beam. The water was even faster than the bullets from the gun Secace, white light and seeming to envelop the edges of the circular tunnel of water that reached Archer even as he rotated his body and leaned backwards to dodge the stream of water as much as he could.

A hole appeared in his left arm, cutting cleanly through his biceps and barely passing by the bone, the scenery behind him clearly visible through the perforation.

At the very last second, Rider had managed to combine Secace and Morgan into the sniper rifle that was now resting on her shoulder, the red circles from the corrupted sword glowing along its side as she peered through the scope at Archer. Archer, unable to expect something like a sniper rifle to suddenly appear in her hands, was caught off guard and injured.

"Kh…"

Archer clutched his now useless left arm as he glared at Rider, who calmly centered the aim of her newly manifested sniper rifle on his chest.

"It seems you were not even worthy of getting through the first stages of the War, Archer."

With those parting words, she pressed the trigger.