"If there's something you'd like me to do for you in exchange for your assistance, just let me know."
"I believe we have had this conversation already, Archer."
"That's not what I meant, and I know you know it." Caster smirks; yeah, he knows. "I meant besides that."
"Of course," Caster says, as his smirk turns to a much more somber expression. "But I warn you, Archer; you may not like what I have to say." Caster looks at you, his crimson eyes piercing you to your core to gaze at the deepest recesses of your soul, as he prefaces his words with "We are heroes of old, Archer; our time in this world has come, and it has gone, and we have no more right to lord over the present day as we do lord over its victories. Heavy as my heart is to say this, we cannot be the ones to defeat Walpurgisnacht. That triumph must be one earned by our masters, and not by us."
"So you're saying we have to stand by and watch as our masters throw themselves at something they can't possibly hope to defeat by themselves?" you ask, your voice cut with the first tinges of disrespect for the King. "I thought you said you'd fight Walpurgisnacht even if it meant disobeying your master. Where'd that Gilgamesh go?"
"And fight Walpurgisnacht I shall, Archer; but I cannot be the one to defeat it. I have had my time to shape the world already, and now it falls to my master and her allies to have their turn. I shall give them all the aid I can muster, but I shall not stand in their way and solve their problem for them. I have seen how this fight ends, Archer; I know when the time will come for I, the King, to depart from the stage and allow my master to claim victory where I may not. I ask that you do the same."
"Are you insane?" you bark at Caster. "Homura needs me, clearly a lot more than Tomoe needs you if you're willing to throw your life away just to prove a point to her. I'm not doing it. You can throw your life away if you're that tired of being here, but I'm not going to throw away my daughter just to satisfy whatever sick scheme you've come up with. I thought you were different from the other Gilgamesh, but clearly you've just traded one form of insanity for another."
Caster shakes his head, and stays his hand from the onslaught of swords you were certain your scathing remarks against him would have earned you. "I have seen how the coming battle will end, Archer, and our outlook is grim. Victory, if it can be won, will be won upon the edge of a knife, for I have seen it. You and I will be the only servants left standing when the battle enters its final turns, and only with the offering of our flesh can our masters' victory be purchased. But it is not just this victory which our sacrifice will purchase; we are also buying the initiative against the storm which shall follow."
"That's absurd," you say. "How can you expect me to believe that?"
"Because the storm I spoke of is another War, one which shall pit our masters against a team of rival puella magi and their servants. If even one of us survives, this Grail-less War shall continue as it has, and our masters will have to wait until the initiative falls to their enemies before they will be allowed the chance to summon us again. But if all of us have fallen, then the initiative will be theirs, and they can summon us again as soon as they are able." Caster places a hand on your shoulder, and for a moment his crimson gaze appears not quite so piercing as before. "I know what I say must sound absurd to you, Archer, but you have trusted the wisdom of I, the King to give you proper guidance before. All I ask is that you trust in my guidance once last time."
"Call upon the sword of promised victory. Sacrifice yourself, and open the pathway for your master and her allies to claim that victory promised to them. It will be theirs, so long as you trust me, Archer, as you have many times before."
Caster was right. You don't like what he had to say to you. But if he's right, it may be the only way for Homura to defeat Walpurgisnacht and come out alive...
The battle has been a hard-fought one, and even getting this far has taxed you greatly. You've had to stand by and watch as you lost Assassin, as Kirika, Kyouko, Mikuni Oriko, and Nagatsuki MIyuki lost their servants one after another. Now, you've had to watch as Caster lets himself be taken by one of
Walpurgisnacht's beams of light, and Tomoe-san is completely powerless to stop the attack or to protect her servant in any way.
"What are we supposed to do now?" Kirika asks. "Caster was, like, our strongest attacker with that vacuum-wave thing of his, wasn't he? So how are we supposed to beat this stupid witch without him?"
As the battle against
Walpurgisnacht rages on, you feel the chance of victory slipping from your fingers, little by little as the seconds pass. "We have to keep pressing the attack<" you say, not entirely believing the truth in your words as you speak them. "If we give up, we've already lost."
"Akemi-san is right," Tomoe-san says. "The loss of Caster may be... Disheartening, but we cannot simply lie down and let
Walpurgisnacht defeat us! If we did that, then the losses of Assassin, Berserker, Rider, Lancer, Saber, and he will have been for nothing!" You cannot forget that buildings are still being thrown at you; fortunately, Tomoe-san is ready to intercept them, calling on an assortment of artillery pieces with a wave of her hand. "Come on, everyone! We've got to keep at it!
Tiro Finale!"
Tomoe-san lets loose with a barrage of artillery from her massed
Tiro Finale, doing her bets to shatter the falling buildings as Caster had done before her. Joining her is Kyouko, whose massive spear blockade serves as an adequate substitute for Saber's Book of Water; adequate, but not quite as good at pulping the incoming buildings as Saber had been. Fortunately, Mikuni Oriko is there, bearing the burden of the falling debris with her barrier lattice.
"Homura, I'm going to launch a pretty high-powered attack on Walpurgisnacht. I need you to throw some Command Seals my way to give me as much mana as possible for my attack."
You look at the diamond pattern tattooed onto the back of your hand. It's been there ever since the day Archer first crashed through your couch and into your life. At first, it represented a way to ensure obedience from an asset you could only tenuously trust, and whose status as an asset was equally tenuous.
But now, those Command Seals represent the indelible mark Archer has made on your life.
To give them up would mean severing the pact between he and you, right? What would happen then? Would he be forced to leave you at that point?
But if you don't, and you lose the battle and are forced to reset, what guarantee do you have that you'll find Archer again? Your hand clenches into a fist, as you say
"Alright."
No sooner has Mikuni Oriko heaved the burden of the fallen debris from the shoulders of her barriers, than you say to her
"I need Command Seals. At least two."
"Of course." The transfer takes only a moment, and your hand is burdened with two of Mikuni Oriko's sins, which form into a pair of shapes reminiscent of a raven's wings flanking either side of the main diamond pattern.
"use them well, Akemi-san."
"I will," you say, before returning your attention to Archer, who has already Projected his weapon of choice, a sword whose simple form radiates a power and magnificence unlike anything you've ever felt; truly, a sword of swords.
"Ready whenever you are."
"Give me as many Command Seals as you're willing to spare, and follow that up with whatever you've got that can deal a lot of damage. With Tomoe and the others working building defense, we're the only ones left who can deal any real damage to this thing, so we've got to keep at it no matter what."
You hold out your hand. You've never had to do this to Archer before, but you've seen it done enough times by your allies to know what's expected of you. "Archer, by my Command, use these two Seals to empower your attack with as much mana as I can give you! Don't let
Walpurgisnacht survive!"
As soon as you've spoken those words, your Command Seals swell, sucking power from you and transplanting it directly into Archer's body. Immediately, you make sure to cleanse yourself, and bring up your bow to follow along with Archer's attack. You draw back the string of your bow, calling the ice into your hand, and Archer swings his sword wide, calling out its name as he unleashes his attack.
"Merodach!"
"Finitora Freccia!"
Gold and icy blue mingle together as your attacks soar against your foe, colliding with
Walpurgisnacht. It's a beautiful sight to behold, but beautiful or not, what matters is whether your attacks will defeat
Walpurgisnacht or not. Your ice has already proven to be ineffective once before, with
Walpurgisnacht springing back and launching a counter-attack even after being completely encased in ice by your
Finitora Freccia. But Archer was right; with Tomoe-san and Mikuni Oriko focusing on building defense, you and he are the only committed damage-dealers left on the team, so you have to keep up the pressure no matter what.
And who knows? the hopeful part of your brain wishes the rest of you would say,
maybe one of those attacks will be the one that finally defeats Walpurgisnacht.
Unfortunately, it will not be this one. The ice fails, just as it did before, and you hear Archer mutter to himself
"I hate when Caster is right." His sword of swords disappears, and in its place he Projects one very similar; and yet, from this other sword, you can feel a certain radiance, a radiance which even the previous sword was lacking.
It's the same feeling you got from Avalon the first time you saw it.
So entranced by the beauty of this second sword, that no words are enough for you to describe it. You cannot speak, cannot find the words to give command to Archer as many motes of gold surround his form and the form of his sword. Archer readies himself for another strike, thrusting the weapon as hard as he can as he cries out its name.
"Excalibur!"
The name of the sword pierces your mind, as the brilliant beam of light erupting from the sword pierces through
Walpurgisnacht. The sword belonging to King Arthur, the very same servant who in life your servant was once the master of.
It has to be enough, that optimistic part of your mind hopes.
It has to be. But, even
this sword, its brilliant beam of light shining as brightly as thirty torches in your eyes, is not enough to bring down the massive black gear floating in the sky.
Archer breathes out deeply, saying "Ah, man, I really hope Caster was right," as his body succumbs to the same fate as all the other servants so far. You fall to your knees, unable to even croak out his name as you watch your father disappear before your eyes. "Imagine something you can win with."
Those are the last words your father says to you.
Do you
[ ] Keep fighting; don't let Archer's death be for nothing
[ ] Give up; restart the timeline
[ ] Give up; become a witch and and keep destroying until there's nothing left