010 - Rules are made to be broken

Olga Marie Animusphere.

Olga can only watch in amazed awe as Fujimaru goes toe to toe with a bona fide Servant on her own. Sure, she had recently learned that her last Master Candidate was a capable fighter. Sure, she had even -begrudgingly!- accepted this harebrained plan of attack, which more or less means she'd chosen to believe in Fujimaru's strength, but…

Well, it's one thing to know something at an intellectual level, but seeing it in person is a very different matter.

"Haku-senpai is really amazing…" Kyrielight mutters from Olga's side, sounding every little bit as awed as she was feeling. No, definitely even more awed. "Isn't she?"

"Fujimaru's performance is certainly…" Olga trails off, sorting through her mind for a qualifier that properly conveys acknowledgement without making her sound like a star-struck teenager. "Remarkable."

"Hmm…" Tohsaka-sen… Tohsaka-san hums, stepping up a deep frown on her face. "What do you think, Archer?"

"Archer of Black isn't fighting at full power." The answer from the dark-skinned girl is immediate and unhesitant.

"Feared as much, either the Blackening weakened him more than the others or he's holding back for some reason." Tohsaka-san continues, worrying at her lip for a moment before regaining her composure. "In any case, don't take Haku's performance here as the golden standard. The battles yet to come will be harder."

Olga casts a glance towards the fight on top of the skyscraper overseeing the bridge, where blades are projected, swung and destroyed faster than her eyes can keep up with. Then she turns around to send an incredulous look at Tohsaka-san. She opens her mouth to say something, anything, to comment on the absurdity of that statement, but she's cut off when Tohsaksa-san speaks up again.

"Ah, looks like Haku won."

Feeling a bit miffed about having missed out whatever just happened, Olga turns her attention back towards the building to find Archer shackled down by some sort of binding sphere and Fujimaru standing right in front of him like an idiot.

"There's no way he can't break free from that, right?" She frowns worriedly. As far as she's observed so far, Fujimaru is exactly the sort of overconfident fool that would lower her guard around a seemingly-defeated enemy and suffer a sudden reversal. "Why isn't he…"

"Breaking free? Maybe he can, maybe not. At the very least, he knows there's no point in trying." Tohsaka-sen… Tohsaka-san tries to explain, only managing to make Olga feel even more confused. "He's at a disadvantage here, just because he might be capable of breaking out of that one doesn't mean he'll be given the chance."

"Fujimaru is just standing there, gloating." She points out in frustration. "I don't see how Archer is being kept from making a move."

"High-level combat is often like that." Tohsaka-san sighs. "There's a lot of intuitive and instinctive information exchange going on between the combatants that flies right over outside observers like us. Very unscientific, kind of annoying, but you learn to deal with it."

"Similar skill sets, anything Archer of Black can do at his current level, Haku can counter." Archer of Red analyzes the situation with a cool, detached voice. "Brute-forcing won't work from an unfavorable position. Rather than struggle pointlessly or upping the ante, Archer of Black accepted defeat."

"Well… Flies right over outside observers like us unless we're combat savants, of course." Tohsaka-san corrects herself, sending a nod and a small smile to her Servant. "Thank you for the imput, Archer."

"It was nothing, Master."

Is... that how it is? To be honest with herself, Olga is feeling way out of her element here. She's done her best to keep herself competent in all relevant fields, but single combat has never been a priority. From the very start, she was supposed to become an armchair commander, someone useless for the front lines who would stay behind while others risked limb and life, mostly taking up duties related with logistics and large-scale strategy.

Concepts like speaking through combat, accepting death with dignity instead of struggling to the bitter end or refusing to use their full power in a life or death confrontation… It sounds like stuff straight out of a fairytale to her. Then again, it's hard to claim it doesn't make sense when she's walking around heroic spirits literally fueled by legends.

It drives home how much she has yet left to learn. (It makes her feel like she'll always have much left to learn.)

As she reflects on this, Fujimaru seemingly decides it would be good fun to blow herself up alongside anything in her general proximity and explodes into a miniature sun that consumes the entire skyscraper and the nearing buildings, leaving only scraps and a molten slag behind.

Only to find herself freefalling a good two thousand feet due to the sudden lack of a building to stand on. Because of course she does.

"Right, I'm not even going to ask…" Olga tries to remain calm and composed in the face of the sheer absurdity she's being forced to go through. Absurdity that's not even caused by Servants, at that. She really, truly tries her very best to accept the unreasonable with dignity and adapt to the situation without making an unsightly fuss. "What the hell was that!"

… Some things are simply beyond her.

"That was Haku-nee trying to look cool and imitating something beyond her reach by using a high-level projection of a similar nature." The Einzbern master drawls out with a frown. "That idiot… What was she thinking?"

Olga frowns at the young girl's (casual verbal abuse) disrespect towards (someone under her protection) her employee, so she turns towards the brat to give her a piece of her mind and–

"Rider!" Matou's urgent hall cuts her off before she can even start, a finger pointed towards Fujimaru's still falling form. "To her!"

"Ha!" The Servant accepts the command without hesitation, springing out from wherever she was skulking in the shadows around them.

As Olga watches the gorgeous purple-haired woman run on freaking water, she takes solace in the fact that the woman is at least a Servant and this sort of nonsense is somewhat expected of them.

"What's with the urgency? It's not like Fujimaru lacks a landing strategy, you know?" She must have one, right? Olga will trust that her loose canon of a subordinate has at least that much common sense. "And don't dare do that again! Only I can call Fujimaru an idiot!"

"Ara~ Feeling defensive of your minions, Lady Director?" The brat asks teasingly, not looking intimidated in the slightest by Olga's glare. "But I call it as I see it, looks like Archer of Black wasn't the only one getting competitive and doing dumb things."

"Eh, what do you mean?"

"She's exhausted herself fighting Archer, showing off when she should've been saving her strength as much as possible." Tohsaka-sen… Tohsaka-san retakes the exposition role "She'll be a sitting duck if Assassin is prowling around, that's why Sakura sent Rider ahead. She's our fastest Servant."

"Oh, that… I can see your point, yes. I'll make sure to personally smack some sense in the idiot when she rejoins the group." She begrudgingly concedes, shooting the Einzbern Master a glare that the brat answers with an eye-roll. "Still, that's one less Servant to worry about, right? Only three remain and now we have the numerical advantage. It won't be the end of the world even if Fujimaru isn't in fighting condition anymore."

"Yes… And No. We don't actually know how strong Saber of Black has become, only that she's stronger than a normal Servant has any right to be." Tohsaka-san's reminder is like a bucket of cold water. "Every card we waste in our way there is a card we can't play against her."

Olga nods numbly. Even a strong opener like this doesn't necessarily mean anything. Even if they dominate all their fights along the way, it'll mean nothing if Saber of Black can simply crush them all at the same time.

…Their struggles have just started, haven't they?

Mashu Kyrielight

By the time Haku-senpai rejoins them, all cheerful smiles and carefree body language, Mashu is feeling a bit… miffed. The whole situation has been an emotional rollercoaster since Chaldea was attacked, but things had seemingly taken a turn for the best after meeting the Master's of the Red Faction.

And yet… the entire strategy for dealing with the singularity leaves a bad taste on her mouth. She's supposed to be Haku-senpai's Servant, the shield that protects her from all harm. But she's being kept in reserve and will be playing a support role most of the time. Even when the Lady Director gave her begrudging seal of approval, it's still hard for Mashu to accept this plan.

To see Senpai fight in the frontlines instead of safely staying behind Mashu's shield (like she should) was nerve-wracking. At least, while Archer had been firing on their position, Mashu's attention had been in protecting the group from his arrows, but once the barrage ended, she was left without anything to do beyond worrying about Haku-senpai.

Oh, she was also supposed to keep an eye out for ambushes, but there were three stronger and more experienced Servants around, so there's no way someone like Mashu would've noticed an enemy skilled enough to somehow escape their attention. She still did her best but… it was hard to feel useful in these circumstances.

And the way Haku-senpai fought off Archer of Black… It filled her with awe. A human cannot fight a Servant, that's an iron-clad truth that's been engraved into Mashu's mind as part of her education. And yet, there went her Master, matching the Blackened Servant blow by blow, as if to mock the way the world was supposed to work.

It might've even been inspiring, had it not made her feel so useless. What was the point of becoming a Demi-servant? What was the point of going through all that pain and suffering? She thought within the privacy of her own mind. She wasn't needed, the one she wanted to protect was stronger than her, smarter, faster, better, harder….

Well, maybe not harder, Mashu was confident in her sturdiness if nothing else.

And then Haku-senpai won, annihilating the enemy Servant in a burst of power that felt like the birth of a new star. It was an incredible sight, and Mashu was genuinely glad that her Senpai was so cool and amazing. Even when the rest of the group made some noise about Senpai's supposed mistakes and they sent Rider-san to her side, Mashu couldn't bring herself to agree with them, Haku-senpai was amazing.

Still, as much as Mashu admired Haku-senpai, the smile on her face felt fake and empty. Because regardless of how she feels about her cool and amazing senpai, her feelings about herself remained dark and gloomy.

After all… What's the use of a shield that's left behind by its master?

While everyone was concerned about Senpai and the possibility of Assassin of Black making a move against her, even the usually sharp eyes of the real Servants missed a shift in the shadows behind them. The gap that opened in their defenses due to their momentary distraction was small, something that most wouldn't even consider a gap at all.

But, just like Archer-san and Berserker-san were warriors of legend, veterans of a thousand battles, so was their opponent an equally dangerous individual. Through that minimal gap that a mortal wouldn't have even noticed, Assassin of Black struck. A masked figure cowled in shadows rushed out of cover, making a beeline towards the Lady Director.

It was nothing short of a miracle that allowed Mashu to notice Assassin's approach from the corner of her eye. And yet, even that miracle very nearly amounted to nothing due to her incompetence and lack of experience. As she moved to try and put herself before the Lady Director, the attacker noticed and adapted.

A grotesquely deformed right arm, many times longer than it had any right to be, was revealed in a rush of uncoiled bandages. So long and swift was the arm, it would cover the distance in but an instant, reaching the Lady Director before Mashu could even finish taking a single step.

Really, if not for her panicked mind coming up with the utterly reckless idea of throwing her shield like a spinning disk to intercept and it somehow working… Well, the Lady Director would've died in front of her eyes, without her being capable of doing anything. No, Mashu won't make excuses for her ineptitude, that's what should have happened.

Just because she got incredibly lucky once, it doesn't mean she's actually in any position to claim the merit. Besides, Assassin got away in the end, so all her miraculous good luck ended up amounting to nothing.

So, yes. By the time Haku-senpai rejoins them, she's feeling slightly miffed. It might be unsightly of her but, for once in her life, seeing Haku-senpai's carefree cheer doesn't put a smile on her face or makes her heart beat faster. It just makes her feel tiny and insignificant and everyone almost died and she was completely useless and—

"Fou!"

"Fou? What are you—?"

"Fou, Fou!"

"Oh, not again! Vade retro, creature! I deny your— Gack!"

…It might be unsightly of her, but the sight of Haku-senpai rolling on the floor, roughhousing with Fou and acting as if getting him off her face is a struggle does put a small smile on Mashu's face.

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