My gaze tracked Lancer as he closed the distance between us, then flicked back toward Rider, who was steadily being pushed back by Archer.
My grip on the stake-chain shifted by millimeters.
BOOM!
Air tore. Lancer's spear collided with my stake-chain mid-swing. Without breaking momentum, my wind-sheathed hand surged toward his face. He shifted, his free hand rising to deflect my unseen strike.
I pivoted, driving a kick toward his flank without pause. His own leg came up.
Shin met shin. The impact rang out like a hammer on iron.
My forehead snapped upward—straight for his chin.
BAM!
Inches before impact, runes flared to life across his jaw, siphoning away a third of the force. Even so, my blow snapped his head back, forcing him to retreat.
With a slight shake of his head, he moved to shrug off the residual shock. I threw my stake-chain at that exact moment.
Lancer reacted on instinct, but his footing faltered on a loose patch of earth. He stumbled—his head dropping dead center into the chain's trajectory.
Stake-chain tore through the space where his skull had been a fraction of a second prior, missing him by a hair's breadth as he threw himself into a desperate roll.
I still held my stance, slowly lowering my leg and straightening my posture. Across from me, he rose to his feet.
"You are... Cú Chulainn."
Lancer's pupils dilated in surprise before narrowing.
"How did you reach that conclusion, Kid?" He asked, driving his spear's bottom end into the ground and leaning on it with wary curiosity.
"Your reaction just now confirmed it." My words made his temple twitch.
A heavy pause. "You possess a crimson spear."
"You have terrible luck." My eyes shifted to the uneven ground that nearly became his reason for defeat.
"And you are weak to beautiful women." Lancer opened his mouth to retort. I did not let him.
"And finally, you utilize runes... more specifically, Primordial Runes." As if to mirror my claim, intricate runes similar to his own continued to materialize and dissolve across my skin.
"The pieces aligned perfectly. A crimson spear. Primordial Runes. A weakness for beautiful women. And luck so poor it made you slip mid fight."
"You're really a monster, Kid. You've been analyzing me since our first meeting? No... not just me. Everyone." Something close to respect flickered across Lancer's face.
"Kid, you and my Master might really hit it off." A nostalgic light entered his eyes.
"The Witch of Dún Scáith?" I asked despite already knowing.
"Yes." He affirmed, pulling his spear from the earth and settling into a fresh stance.
"Let's finish our duel." His voice brimmed with fighting spirit.
"Unfortunately..." I spoke while pivoting back.
BOOM!
A sonic boom from behind swallowed my words.
Rider slid toward my back.
She turned mid-motion. My own steps rotated in perfect sync.
Both of us moved in a half-circle, our backs gliding against each other.
I closed toward Archer now, while she slid toward Lancer.
Sound barrier shattered twice in that same instant—a wind blade grinding against Bakuya, a chain rattling against the crimson spear.
I had reached Archer just as my surroundings bled away into complex lines of data, parsed, processed, and recorded in seconds.
The moment my wind blade collided with Bakuya, I felt it—the weapon was heavier than its size suggested. Forged in pairs. A deliberate resonance visible between them.
Clang. Clang. Clang.
My wind blade assailed him from every angle, yet he moved through the barrage as though he'd experienced each strike a thousand times. Kanshou and Bakuya deflecting whatever he couldn't dodge.
He already knew my fighting style.
My mind accelerated. Every reaction of his was analyzed, every dodge simulated, every unconscious movement catalogued. A conclusion surfaced instantly.
He didn't know my fighting style. Rather, he knew Artoria's—the style I was currently employing.
I dropped Artoria's form entirely. My stance widened, weight dropping lower. Medusa's style—less swordsmanship, more predation.
Archer's eyes changed. For the first time, his rhythm broke.
Then, half a breath later, it reformed.
Clang. Click. Clang.
He knew Medusa's style as well.
Martial arts from countless disciplines poured through me, layered beneath Artoria and Medusa's techniques. My footwork oscillated between forms with every step.
Even this failed to stump him. Apparently, he knew them all.
But it was enough. A separate thought stream observing the entire exchange had already reached a conclusion.
His unconscious habits, the micro-twitches of his eyes, his body language—they were nearly identical to someone else from my memories. Only a handful of minute differences separated them.
Archer swung his twin blades in a wide arc, pushing me back to catch a breather.
"So... how did you end up becoming a Heroic Spirit... Shirou Emiya?" I watched as his hold tightened over Kanshou and Bakuya.
Archer gazed at me with a complex expression.
"Master of Saber... it seems analyzing anything is possible for you, right? Then can you predict what comes next?" Archer's voice was calm.
Yet my danger sense went haywire. A sensation comparable to facing Gilgamesh flooded my instincts.
"I am the bone of my sword."
Currents of pure mana roared to life around him. The warnings escalated to another level just as those words left his mouth.
"Steel is my body and fire is my blood."
BOOM!
The sound barrier shattered. My legs burned. Distance collapsed.
"I have created over a thousand blades."
Kanshou and Bakuya slowly dissolved from his grip.
"Have withstood pain to create many weapons."
The ground beneath my feet fractured, shifting seamlessly into a wasteland desert.
"Yet, those hands will never hold anything."
Every sigil from [Beast Will] blazed with abandon. Every magic circuit within me erupted without restraint.
My surroundings dissolved into a cluster of speeding lines.
I was close.
"So as I pray..."
His eyes met mine. Calm. Resigned. Almost gentle.
"Unlimited Blade Works."
I reached him.
Yet—
My invisible arm passed through where his neck should have been.
The world... was overturned.
...
..
.
***
[200 Power Stones = 1 Bonus Chapter]
[5 chapters ahead on P@tr3on = [email protected]/Not_Aaryan]
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[Unlimited Blade Works]: It is a high-class magecraft aka a Reality Marble that embodies the user's internal world and imprints them upon the outer world as a Bounded Field for a short amount of time. It is Shirou's one true specialization of magecraft, the result of the concept of swords being both his Origin and Elemental Affinity, and the basis of his Projection and Reinforcement skills. It is the definite ability obtained by someone whose life was saved by a sword, who further merged and lived with a sword, and acted as a sword all of his life.
...
[Authors Thoughts]
Only a single release for today and tomorrow. I'll continue double releases after a day or two of breather.
Have a nice day, everyone!
...
Note: Archer EMIYA could push Rider back simply because Kanshou and Bakuya are Anti-Monster weapons, especially effective against someone like Rider.