“I have returned,” Archer announced herself as she materialized inside the baroque bedroom, her body assembling from a myriad specks of black dust like iron sand. Her boots resounded loudly as they touched the wooden floor. Her appearance, covered in black garbs that did not reveal a single inch of skin, completely failed to match the overly ornate—pretentious, even—ambiance of the slightly dusty room.
Sprawled on the couch like a bored Cleopatra, the Master of Archer lazily waved in the direction of the black-clothed Servant. Unlike the Servant, the Master had abandoned any pretense of modesty, choosing instead to loaf on the coach in only a black tank-top and panties.
“Yes, yes, thank you for the hard work~”
In her life, Servant Archer mentally mused, she had been somewhat fond of cats. Her Master, Reiroukan Misaya, truly looked like a lazy black cat, aloof and uncaring, but her eyes never losing their predatory luster. They were beautiful eyes, Archer thought, belonging to a beautiful woman.
“I wanted to see if I could get along with a dangerous woman like you.”
That was the reason Misaya gave her, when she asked her why she had summoned her of all possibly figures in history and mythology. Misaya’s preconceptions…Archer doubted she was the strong woman Misaya had believed her to be.
“Ah, the two Riders’ true identities…”
“Yes, I saw, I saw,” Misaya interrupted, her lazy tone unchanging. “The Gorgon Medusa and Norse Goddess Freyja.”
Archer nodded, and Misaya’s lips perked in a smile of sheer amusement.
“Congratulations on killing Freyja, by the way,” she said. “It was a magnificent shot.”
“Ah…” Archer’s shoulders dropped a bit. “It was a lucky shot…”
“No, no,” Misaya would not take that crap. “You saw a chance and took it. Furthermore, your identity and the nature of your Noble Phantasm remain a secret. Excellent work, Archer.”
A quiet exhalation could be heard from behind the mask that concealed Archer’s face.
“I…was hoping Freyja would defeat Medusa, to be honest.”
“I guessed as much. Your Noble Phantasm only works against ‘true heroes’, after all.” Misaya’s eyes roamed up and down the length of Archer’s heavily garbed body in a way that made the Servant a little too conscious of herself. “More like, why are you standing there all stiff like that? Come closer, Archer.”
A sigh could be very clearly heard this time, but Archer acquiesced nonetheless.
“About Freyja’s Master…”
“Ah, it’s fine, it’s fine…” Misaya once more dismissed Archer’s words. “It’s good that you didn’t kill’er. That would just create bad blood, and I might as well keep the family out of trouble with the Edelfelts.” She chuckled. “It’s funnier to watch her run away with’er tail between her legs, anyway.” Adopting a more serene expression, Misaya allow her eyelids to close as she eased herself back on the comfort of the felt couch. “Getting away alive was more important. It got quite tough for a while there, didn’t it?”
“Ah, haa…”
Misaya’s left eye quickly opened, her iris sparkling with a hint of mischief.
“I was this close to just recalling you with a Command Spell, you know?”
Archer’s shoulders fully slumped down just as she sat on the couch’s armrest furthest from Misaya’s teasing smile.
“Leaving me to die would be the better choice, Master…”
“No, no, I’ll have none of that kind of whining,” the teasing young woman immediately declared, her left index wagging from side to side. “We’ll just have to be grateful to that little Berserker for getting in the way.”
Yes, Archer realized as well that she had survived that night because that strange Berserker with the bull skull helmet got in the other Archer’s way, turning a rather one-sided duel into a chaotic three-way free-for-all. The dark-skinned Archer in the red and black clothes had quickly proved himself superior in technique both with bow and dual-wielding short swords, pushing her to the limit of her combat skills and finding them lacking. Truly, he would have definitely killed her had that crazy little Berserker failed to show up.
“Did she…?”
“Nah, she did not kill the other Archer,” Misaya said with a tone somewhat resembling disgust. “More like, she never had the intention to do so in the first place.”
“Master?”
“She was just messing with him, anybody could see that.” The scantily clad young woman shrugged lazily. “Seems like she has bit of an interest in him, if you ask me. None of our business, really.”
However, she chuckled, and that drew her Servant’s attention. Misaya relaxedly gazed at the geometrical forms precisely carved on the wooden ceiling, her entwined palms easing on the back of her head.
“But we actually killed a Servant, Archer, and a goddess to boot.” Another chuckle. “Aren’t we cool?”
“Ah, well, yes…” Archer was unsure of what to say. “I guess…it is a significant accomplishment, yes.”
“…a ‘significant accomplishment’, huh…” Misaya shook her head in mixed astonishment and exhaustion. “Really, Archer.”
“Yes?”
Misaya glanced at the masked Servant. Truly, she was nothing like she had imagined. She had imagined some sort of ultimate femme-fatale, a legendary ‘man-eater’ of unimaginable wickedness. What she got was instead this…weird, child-like young woman, her figure permanently and completely concealed from the world, as if ashamed of her very identity. The complete opposite of a confident “legendary figure”.
It had been almost one week since she summoned Archer, and Misaya believed she already had an idea of the kind of person her Servant was. It was not shame that bothered her Archer, but ‘confusion’. ‘Ignorance’ might be an even better word.
Archer was confused about the fact she was summoned because she did not believe she was the kind of existence that deserved the title of “Heroic Spirit”. What it is Archer believes herself to be, ‘heroic’ it is not.
“Archer, how does it feel?” Misaya insisted. “I mean, you defeated a legendary figure, a true ‘Heroic Spirit’. So, how does it feel?”
“Ah, but…” Archer hurriedly shook her head. “To call it ‘defeat’ is too much, isn’t it? I just…scored a shot from behind while she was distracted with Medusa…” Truly, she had not the slightest intention of making it a big deal. “Furthermore, she was tired after using her Noble Phantasm…”
“Archer.”
The Servant became silent.
“You killed a hero. With the weapon in your hands, with the skills you possess, you stalked and struck down a legendary goddess. The method doesn’t matter: you. Killed. A Heroic Spirit.” The voice carried no reproach. If anything, Misaya seemed delighted by the whole deal. “You attacked a Heroic Spirit and succeeded. Accept it with pride.”
Archer looked down at her Master’s beautiful figure on the couch, or at least so Misaya thought, what with the mask covering her Servant’s face. A second or two later, Archer’s head dropped, as if to gaze at her own lap , and at the open hand resting on her thighs.
“I…I beat…Freyja. I beat her.”
“Yes, Archer; you beat Norse goddess Freyja,” Misaya repeated with the allure of a siren drawing the sailor to a watery grave. “Isn’t that amazing?”
“…yes…yes, and…I did it. With my arrow. With Adrasteia.”
“Yes, a great Noble Phantasm it is. The greater and more famous, noble and powerful the hero, the stronger the arrow becomes. That Herakles cheats with his stock of lives, but all other great figures of legend will definitely lose to your arrow, Archer.”
“Hmm.”
Misaya watched her pitiful Archer raise her head once more, only to look at the night beyond the window. The< did not have much from a view from that old house, so it was not hard to guess that her Servant’s mind was somewhere else.
“…what are you thinking, Archer?”
“…I, I just wonder…is this it?”
Misaya smiled, quietly encouraging her Servant to speak her mind.
“Is this…what it is like, to be a ‘Heroic Spirit’? To fight, and kill, those like yourself?”
Misaya shrugged. “I’d say it’s the gist of it. Those humanity reveres the most are the ones who rise to the stage the moment words fail and weapons are drawn. Really, it’s beyond stupid.” She sounded exasperated indeed. “Even you, who never fought a battle in your life, became immortal because your deeds resulted in the death of an entire generation of so-called heroes.”
Archer did not seem to react to the obvious taunt. She clenched and relaxed her hands again and again, as if trying to make sure she was there, alive, and herself.
“Isn’t that…is that not just too pitiful…?”
She finally said those words, and Misaya’s eyes sparkled with delight.
Yes, she had made the right choice with this Servant, after all! How delightfully interesting, her pitiful Archer!
“Uwah!” Archer squeaked in reaction to being suddenly pulled to the side by Misaya’s forceful hand. Poor balance caused the two women to slump off the couch, falling on the hard, cold wooden floor with the Master on top.
“Master…?” The masked Servant inquired with no little confusion, looking up at the dangerously close, predatory gaze of the mischievous magus who had summoned her.
“Don’t mind me; I just thought you were unbearably adorable just a moment ago, so I felt like pushing you down and having my way with you.” Misaya’s tone made it hard to tell whether she spoke in jest or not.
Archer only tilted her head a slight bit.
“I am still substantially stronger than you, Master. I highly doubt it is even possible for you to ‘have your way with me’, as you put it.”
“Ah, ah, ah…” Misaya wagged a finger before Archer’s masked face. “We’re not playing semantics now. If anything, it makes replenishing your prana more fun, does it not?”
Yet another sigh from behind the mask.
“Entertainment value aside, it is not possible for me to engage in such activities in this form, Master.”
Misaya raised an eyebrow even as she smiled triumphantly. Nothing in Archer’s speech suggested her being against further intimacy. That smile soon changed to her habitual teasing smirk, though.
“Well of course it is not possible, what with all these clothes in the way,” The black-haired Japanese beauty pointed out. “For starters, we are in dire need of direct…physical contact…”
Archer’s hand moved much faster than Misaya could hope to react to, quickly reaching for the young magus’ right wrist. The same wrist attached to the hand surreptitiously reaching for the edge of Archer’s mask.
“Do not,” the Servant declared, and her voice left no room for argument. It was not the first time this happened, even if it was one of the first things she explained to her overly desirous Master.
“If I take off this mask you will definitely die, Master. Please, do not make me reveal my face in your presence.”
“Archer…” It was sort of a warning growl, like a mother tigress standing between the poacher and her cubs.
“Does Master wish to die that badly? You should still have some time left.”
Misaya’s pupils shrunk notoriously even as her eyes opened most widely.
“You…”
“Master is not the only one who dreams,” Archer calmly answered the unspoken question.
A hand covered in a leather glove reached for Misaya’s right cheek, holding it carefully and tenderly, as if afraid of breaking the magus’ beautiful face.
“Please, do not use me to take your own life, Master.”
For a second, only for a second, to Archer’s eyes, Misaya’s face became the one of a girl terrified by the prospect of inescapable doom.
Only for a second.
After that, a mask of coldness more baleful than the physical object covering Archer’s face was forged before Reiroukan Misaya’s dark eyes.
“It would be painless,” she flatly said, unsubtly revealing the true extent of her fear.
“Yes. But I must insist.”
Spirit returned to Misaya’s irises, even if it was in the form of restrained anger.
“You have Independent Action,” she pointed out. “You can still fight other heroes as you please even after I’m dead, if only for a while.”
Archer shook her head calmly.
“Rather than a hero that pointlessly fights and kills other heroes, I would rather be the hero that brings happiness to the one who called for her aid.”
Archer silently watched the emotions dancing in Misaya’s lustrous irises. Anger and desire were there, as usual, this time accompanied by hints of the painfully weak child usually concealed by the forceful personality that so deeply attracted Archer to her Master in the first place.
“I don’t need you,” Misaya rebelliously pointed out. Truly, her beautiful Master was so childish at times…
“Yet I still want to give you the Grail.”
Something liquid gleamed in the corners of Misaya’s eyes, if only for a moment. They were quickly hidden by the young woman’s own hair, when she lowered her face to intensely kiss Archer’s mask where her lips should be.
Originally Posted by SVNB Backup
I would say not. It's even called Protection in the title of the skill. It strikes the spiritual core as a property. Not just "aims for the core", sounds more like it fires and you're dead buddy.bypassing any and all protection upon the Servant however mighty
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