Archer the Sorcerer Chapter 11

Chapter 11: The Archer Supremacy

Chapter 11: The Archer Supremacy

The click of the camera shutter was almost hypnotic.

“Beautiful! One more! Yes—perfect!”

She tilted her chin ever so slightly, lips parting into a subtle smile as the light from the softbox glinted off her pale hair. The sheer winter-themed dress they’d wrapped her in sparkled faintly under the camera’s flashes.

Kyoto Tower loomed behind her through the large glass windows, casting its faint silhouette against the snow-frosted sky.

Another shot. Another angle. Another compliment.

She moved with practiced grace, the result of over five years of experience, despite only just entering her early teens. Each pose, each glance—refined and quiet, like a porcelain doll who had learned how to perform perfection. The people behind the cameras often forgot how young she really was.

She hadn’t always lived like this.

Model. Public face. The pretty girl in magazine spreads and TV commercials who people said “looked like a foreign princess.”

That wasn’t where her story had begun.

Sometimes, on quiet nights, when the world slowed down and she was left alone in hotel rooms far from home, Illyasviel von Einzbern remembered the snow. Not the soft kind that fell gently over Kyoto rooftops—but the blinding, all-consuming kind. The kind that filled the air and erased everything.

It had been more than five years ago.

She had been even smaller then—still speaking mostly in German, still clutching a stuffed animal for comfort. Still completely unsure why the world around her had changed so suddenly.

It was a day that lived in her memory like a cracked mirror—sharp edges and fractured pieces.

Her parents—her new parents in this world—hadn’t made it.

They had names she didn’t whisper often anymore. Names she kept locked in a box inside her heart.

And then…

He came.

A boy, older than her. White hair. Deep eyes. He had stood by the door as if he didn’t quite belong there, and yet somehow belonged nowhere else more completely.

She had woken up in a haze of IVs and hospital sheets. Alone. Surrounded by sterile walls and unfamiliar faces.

She remembered the warmth of his voice more than his words. The strange kindness in his eyes.

He wasn’t her brother. He wasn’t a doctor.

He was something else.

A mystery.

A stranger, but familiar. Like someone out of a dream she’d forgotten.

The grief didn’t disappear, but the silence around it became bearable. Like someone had carved a space inside her where healing could begin.

After that, she was placed into the care of another relative—this one real, though distant. A woman from Munich, her mother’s side. Too busy to raise a child, but wealthy and well-connected. So Illya was given a place to live in Japan, regular check-ins, and a monthly stipend.

It was supposed to be temporary, but she stayed.

The world moved on.

And so did she.

Modeling had started by accident. A talent scout saw her sitting in a park reading a book—her silver-white hair catching the light, her eyes a piercing ruby that no camera could ignore. She was barely nine when she first appeared in a print ad. By eleven, she had contracts. Agencies. Fans.

People called her gifted. Ethereal. One in a million.

But they didn’t know her story.

They didn’t know how her smile was something she’d practiced in mirrors to replace the ones she lost.

They didn’t know about the boy who had rescued her—who vanished as quickly as he appeared.

Sometimes, when she looked at strangers on the street, she wondered if she’d see him again.

She had never even asked his name.

It was foolish, probably. To hold onto a memory like that for so long. But when you lost everything in a single moment, even the smallest kindness could grow into a foundation.

"Okay! That’s a wrap! Thank you as always, Illya-chan!" the director finally called out. A collective cheer rose from the set crew.

Illya exhaled softly in relief. Her smile didn’t fade until she was off the set, wrapped in a cozy white coat, sitting in the makeup room where an assistant handed her a cup of warm tea.

"Thank you," she said politely, her Japanese clear and slightly accented. She’d spoken it fluently for years now, but there was always a trace of European refinement in her tone.

Her manager—a tall, busy woman in her late thirties—hovered nearby, phone in hand. “Your shoot went a little long, sorry about that. I’ve arranged for your driver to meet you out front. You’re staying at the Higashiyama Inn, right?”

Illya nodded, sipping her tea slowly. “Yes.”

"You can walk there, actually. It’s just a few blocks through the central district. I’d say enjoy the view, but apparently there's a bit of commotion tonight—some security event, maybe police activity. Just be careful on your way back, okay?”

Illya’s brows drew together ever so slightly. “Commotion?”

"Just some roads getting shut down temporarily. Nothing serious," the woman waved it off, already distracted by the next client’s calls. "Anyway, you're free for the rest of the day. Go relax!"

Illya nodded again, politely. She gathered her things and slipped out the back entrance with her coat pulled tightly around her, the modeling contract folder tucked under one arm.

Outside, the crisp Kyoto evening greeted her with a gentle chill, snow falling in light, almost theatrical flakes. The old streets were quiet, the modern lights of shops and vending machines glowing softly along the narrow lanes. The air had that blend of winter and incense that always reminded her Kyoto was a city straddling the old and the new.

She liked Kyoto. It was less overwhelming than Tokyo, and the mountains felt like they watched over the city like patient guardians.

As she walked, her white boots tapping against the pavement, she tilted her head up toward the night sky.

It was beautiful.

Not quite the isolated beauty of the countryside she once knew, but still enough to slow her steps.

The streets were beginning to empty.

She passed by a set of police barricades being set up at an intersection, manned by a few officers in bright reflective vests. She tried not to stare. It was a strange sight—not uncommon, but out of place in the calmness of the evening.

She checked her phone.

7:58 PM.

She was supposed to be at the inn by 8:30. She still had time.

Or so she thought.

As she turned into a smaller side street, she noticed something odd—shops had started to close early. One man was rolling down a shutter, hurriedly. Another shopkeeper pulled her child inside and locked the door without so much as a glance in Illya’s direction.

That’s… strange.

She paused, glancing down the long avenue that led back toward the train station. A large electric sign flashed in red:

>>EMERGENCY NOTICE: CERTAIN DISTRICTS UNDER LOCKDOWN

>>PLEASE FOLLOW POLICE GUIDELINES

>>AVOID TRAVEL UNLESS NECESSARY

Illya stopped in place.

Her fingers tightened around the phone. There were no new messages. Her modeling team hadn’t said anything about a serious lockdown. No alerts. No warnings.

A sharp sound cracked in the air—like a pop or distant burst—and a flock of birds exploded out of a nearby park, scattering into the sky.

Illya’s heart jumped.

She turned to head back the way she came, only to see a patrol officer briskly ushering people off the road.

“Please clear the street! Emergency lockdown zone! Return to your residences!”

"I don’t live here," she called out, suddenly breathless. "I’m heading to the Higashiyama Inn!"

“Then take the eastern route! Avoid the central junction—it’s closed!” the officer shouted, pointing toward a narrow alley that sloped downhill between two ancient walls.

Illya hesitated. That wasn’t the way she came, and she didn’t have any GPS in this area. Her driver had planned to pick her up near the station, and her hotel was—at least according to the map—northwest, not east.

Still, she didn’t want to get in trouble, and something about the officer’s voice told her not to linger.

She nodded, breaking into a light jog, coat billowing behind her.

The alley was quiet, nearly deserted.

All she could hear was her own breathing, the occasional buzz of a neon sign, and the echo of police vehicles redirecting traffic somewhere behind her.

She pulled her coat tighter.

Something about this wasn’t normal.

Kyoto didn’t shut down like this without reason.

And even though she was just a girl—just a model, just someone trying to find a place in the world—she had learned to listen to her instincts.

The path she followed eventually opened into a wider plaza near the Kiyomizu Temple district. Normally a haven for tourists, it was now eerily empty. Not a single food stand was open. The lights were dimmed. Even the temple gates, majestic in their vermillion red, stood silent and heavy.

And that’s when she felt it.

A prickle. A whisper at the edge of her mind. The hair on the back of her neck stood up.

She didn’t know why.

But she was sure of one thing.

Something terrible was coming.

She clutched her phone and called her driver—no answer. Then she tried the emergency number for the modeling agency’s Kyoto office. Still nothing.

Illya stood beneath the flickering lamplight, staring up at the closed gate of the shrine.

Alone.

Her thoughts swirled.

Had she gone the wrong way?

Why hadn’t anyone come looking for her?

She turned in a slow circle. No familiar faces. No cars. Just silence, broken only by the occasional gust of wind rustling dried leaves across the cobblestone.

She didn’t want to panic. She wasn’t a child anymore.

But for the first time in a long while…

She felt like one.

“I should have waited for the driver,” she whispered to herself. “I shouldn’t have come this way…”

And so, Illya stood alone now in the middle of a locked-down city, clutching her coat around her frame, heart racing.

She wasn’t helpless anymore.

But that didn’t mean she wasn’t scared.

Then, as if summoned by the fear threading through her heart, a sharp sound echoed from deeper in the city.

Not a gunshot. Not thunder.

It was something else.

A screech. Like stone grinding against bone. Like laughter filtered through something that wasn’t human.

Illya spun toward the sound, heart racing.

No one was there.

But the shadows felt deeper now. Hungrier.

She took a step back. Then another.

She stared at her phone.

And for the first time that night, she didn’t feel cold because of the snow.

Illya wrapped her arms tighter around herself as another chill wind swept through the stone-paved street. Her coat—fluffy and expensive-looking—offered little comfort now. She’d always liked the cold, or thought she did. Back in the quiet parts of her old life, snow had meant peace, silence, soft blankets, and hot chocolate.

But now?

Now, the quiet was too complete. The silence wasn’t peace—it was abandonment. Even the lanterns lining the street, once so warm and golden, flickered as if growing afraid.

She walked briskly, heels clicking softly against the old stones. Every turn she took led her deeper into unfamiliar alleyways. Every shrine she passed was shut. Every house had its windows darkened and curtains drawn, like the city itself was holding its breath.

Illya paused at the edge of another intersection, pulling out her phone again. No signal. Still. Her battery was beginning to dip past 20%.

She could feel it again—something watching her.

At first, it had felt like nothing more than paranoia, the lingering aftertaste of fear. But now, she was sure. Her skin crawled. Her fingers trembled not from cold, but from tension. The air around her had changed.

She looked up and around—no figures on rooftops, no one in alleyways.

But there was something in the shadows.

Something real.

She didn't know what it was, but it was there. A pressure, almost. Like walking into a room and knowing someone’s watching you even if they don’t make a sound.

She wasn't supposed to know what it was.

Not anymore.

Her fingers instinctively flexed, as if trying to pull magic from the air.

Nothing came.

There had been a time—long ago and far away—when that instinct would have brought heat to her palm, the hum of power behind her eyes. Magecraft had been a part of her once, woven into her body, her soul, like blood in her veins.

But not in this life.

This Illya was just a girl. A smart one, a graceful one. But a girl nonetheless.

Her magic was gone.

She didn’t know why it hadn’t followed her. Maybe it was part of the price. Maybe it had never belonged to her in this version of the world. Maybe she’d been saved too soon, reborn before fate could settle into her bones again.

Whatever the reason… she was powerless now.

And being powerless in the dark streets of Kyoto was dangerous in a way she couldn’t explain.

She started walking again, faster this time, sticking to the lantern-lit paths as much as she could. Some part of her knew to avoid the darkness, even if her logical mind said it was just the cold and her nerves playing tricks on her.

“Think, Illya,” she whispered to herself, voice sharp with self-control. “Where would be safe?”

The Kyoto Inn. Higashiyama. She had been heading there, but the road signs made it clear that the central district was now closed off. Police had shut down the normal streets. She had no map. No signal.

The thought of sleeping on a shrine bench suddenly didn’t seem all that ridiculous.

Then, out of the corner of her eye, she saw something move.

Her body froze. Her heart skipped a beat.

She turned.

Nothing.

No person. No animal. Just a narrow alley where the shadows seemed to breathe.

She took a step back.

A flicker. Not a sound, but a shape—curling like smoke near the edge of the buildings. There was something there.

Illya’s breath caught in her throat.

It was like watching the dark twist into a grin. No face. No eyes. But she knew it had noticed her. It wasn’t walking. It wasn’t moving like a person. It was sliding.

Something inside her screamed: Run.

She turned on her heel and sprinted.

Her boots skidded across the wet stone, slipping slightly as she bolted down the street. She didn’t look back. She couldn’t. She didn’t want to see what might be chasing her—what might not even be visible.

She ran past an abandoned stand of takoyaki, past an alley that had once hosted a tourist market, past a temple gate that had been sealed shut with police tape.

No one was there to help.

No one would come for her.

Her chest burned as her breaths grew shallow. Her legs ached.

The shadows hadn’t followed her here. Not yet.

But something had changed.

Kyoto was no longer just a beautiful old city she was visiting for work. Something terrible was happening here. She didn’t know what it was. Only that it had started now.

She wiped her face with her sleeve and curled into the blanket.

Like fate had reached out once again.

This time or any other, she could always tell that she was not still its favorite.

The wet sound of slithering grew louder behind her, echoed by an awful, rasping breath—so close she could feel it stirring the back of her neck.

Illya pushed herself up again and stumbled forward, her legs screaming with the effort, her breath white and ragged in the freezing Kyoto air.

The shadows loomed tall along the old stone walls of the closed-off shopping street. Shuttered storefronts with iron grills offered no sanctuary. Every alleyway felt like a dead end. Every flickering lamp only deepened the sense of isolation.

And then she saw them.

Twisted silhouettes, just barely visible in the mist. Some crawling like beasts, others dragging malformed limbs. Their bodies pulsed and oozed like sludge given shape, barely coherent things, yet overflowing with malice.

Cursed Spirits.

A dozen of them—maybe more—surrounding her. She could see their eyeless faces twitching toward her, mouths gaping with hunger and something darker. Some clicked their teeth like insects, others stretched tongues down to the stone street, lapping the air like they could already taste her.

Illya backed up until her spine hit the cold metal of a vending machine.

“No,” she whispered. “No, no—please…”

One of them lurched forward.

Its bloated body swayed with each step, elongated limbs dragging behind. Its face split open in the middle—three long slits like surgical incisions widening to reveal teeth that dripped with black ichor.

A stench hit her. Rotten blood and sulfur.

Her legs locked.

Her vision blurred.

All she could hear was the sound of her heartbeat in her ears.

The air felt thicker. Her lungs burned. She was suffocating in fear.

The memory returned again—Mother.

The hopelessness. The fear. The way she couldn’t scream no matter how much it hurt. The way no one came for her until it was almost too late.

Except him.

That nameless boy.

She had clung to the memory, not daring to believe it had really happened. Even now, years later, she never told anyone. She kept it locked away like a story only she was allowed to remember.

She whispered it now, voice cracking:

“Help…”

And then—

Thunk.

A sharp, echoing sound cut through the silence.

Illya’s eyes snapped open just in time to see the lead Spirit—the one mid-lunge—suddenly stop.

An arrow protruded from its gaping maw. Sleek. Gleaming. Embedded deep within its skull. A faint trail of light pulsed down the shaft before the arrow exploded in a burst of silvery light.

The Cursed Spirit didn’t scream.

It evaporated.

Just gone. No time to writhe, no death throes. It simply ceased, its body dissolving into ash and mist before it even hit the ground.

Illya gasped, her trembling hand rising to cover her mouth.

Another whistle sliced through the night air.

Thunk.

A second Spirit, this one just to the left, was struck through the chest. The arrow didn’t even slow—it tore through the creature like paper, its core unraveling in a blink.

Panic rippled through the remaining spirits. Several twisted their malformed heads, looking past Illya into the shadows behind her. They hissed and began to retreat—skittering backward, crawling into cracks and alleys, melting into the fog that birthed them.

Silence returned.

The street, moments ago filled with horror, now stood still again—save for the mist curling low along the pavement.

Illya’s knees buckled, and she sank slowly to the ground.

Tears welled in her eyes—not from pain, not even relief—but confusion.

She didn’t know who had saved her.

She didn’t know what had just happened.

But those arrows… that light…

Her heart pounded with a strange mix of fear and familiarity.

And in that moment, as she stared down the empty street still glowing faintly from the aftermath of the attack, one question lingered on her lips, unspoken and trembling:

“…Archer?”

---

The cold night air bit sharply against Shirou Gojo’s face as he stood atop the rooftop of a shuttered inn, his gaze sweeping across the Kyoto cityscape cloaked in tension and shadows.

Cursed Spirits had begun to emerge from alleyways and temples, their grotesque forms flickering in and out of sight like ghosts wading through an invisible tide.

The streets below, once busy with tourists and locals preparing for Christmas, were empty now—silent and cordoned off by government orders and hidden barriers.

It was Christmas Eve.

But instead of snow and carols, it was curses and chaos.

“Positions!” Utahime Iori barked to her team from her post on the opposite rooftop. “Keep your eyes sharp. They’ll come in groups.”

Standing nearby, the Kyoto students were already getting into formation. Momo Nishimiya hovered above on her broom, eyes narrowed. Kamo Noritoshi strung his bow silently. Aoi Todo cracked his knuckles in anticipation. Mai Zenin checked the bullets in her revolver.

And among them stood the newest addition, a tall, tanned figure wrapped in dark tactical black—his hair silver-white, his eyes sharp and unreadable.

Shirou Gojo.

No one truly knew who he was.

Only that Satoru Gojo had called in a favor, and what they received was a quiet young man not even old enough to attend high school-- his little brother, who carried himself unlike his big brother—calm, composed, and quiet.

Nothing like Satoru Gojo.

“Where do you want me?” he asked Utahime without fanfare, securing his black gloves tighter around his wrists.

She pointed toward a half-collapsed radio tower ahead. “That vantage point. You’ll be our eyes and long-range support. And if you see anything strange—”

“I’ll strike it down,” he finished, already leaping off the roof.

He moved fast—fluid, controlled. He didn’t even use cursed energy for reinforcement the way the others did. It was pure, practiced movement. Like a soldier trained by battle, not by textbooks.

The students below watched as he scaled the tower in a matter of seconds, quietly landing on its highest stable beam.

He looked over the battlefield from his new perch.

The entire city block was sectioned off, closed to civilians. Across Kyoto, spirits were already appearing in other districts, but this one—the district near Yasaka Shrine—was particularly dense. It was where Utahime had stationed the strongest of the team.

He exhaled slowly. His vision narrowed.

Then, with a whisper of steel and purpose, he lifted his hand—and a bow of shimmering light formed from nothing in his grip.

“Whoa…” Momo whispered from above, her broom slowing.

“What the hell is that?” Mai asked, watching as the strange archer drew a glowing, translucent arrow that hadn’t existed a second before.

“An Innate Technique?” Noritoshi narrowed his eyes, intrigued despite the tension.

“No way,” Todo murmured, “That’s not a curse tool. That’s… pure Construction.”

The arrow hummed faintly as it took form—stable, elegant, deadly.

HE drew the string back.

Then loosed.

The arrow screamed across the battlefield, its arc elegant and exact—piercing a grotesque frog-like Cursed Spirit that had only just emerged from behind a row of abandoned vending machines.

The cursed creature howled once, then exploded into black mist.

Clean kill.

He was already summoning the next arrow.

“He just made that,” Noritoshi muttered, trying to comprehend. “He’s generating them from cursed energy. A Shikigami?”

“No… That’s closer to her Technique,” Momo whispered while looking at her colleague, Mai Zenin.

Mai, on the other hand, was shaken to the core. She never expected that his brother, someone from his family, the bane and envy of the Zenin Family, having the same Cursed Technique as she had… and with better efficiency… and better everything.

“Impossible…” she uttered without knowing.

He didn’t answer. He didn’t hear them.

He was scanning the farthest street again—just beyond their designated sector, on the edge of the block that wasn’t supposed to have any civilians.

Moonlight gleamed off Kyoto’s silent streets, the only sound now the distant howling of Cursed Spirits.

A dense snow drifted through the air, carried by the cold night wind. Amidst abandoned storefronts, flickering streetlamps, and emergency barricades, something stirred—a lone figure darting through the chaos.

There—beneath a flickering streetlamp near the edge of the collapsed zone—he saw movement.

A figure. Slender, pale, and unmistakable in the moonlight—hair as white as snow.

He felt something hit his chest.

A pull.

No, more than that. A memory.

A silhouette, long buried in a dream. His breath caught.

He lowered his bow.

There she was.

Without hesitation, he dropped from the tower.

“Wait—where’s he going?” Mai shouted.

“He just jumped!” Momo called from above.

“He’s breaching formation,” Kamo added sharply.

“Oi! Are you insane?!” they all yelled after him, fists tightening. “Get back in—!”

But Utahime held up a hand.

“No,” she said, eyes narrowing as she tracked the falling figure. “Let him go. He’ll take that civilian to safety.”

She didn’t know who the girl was, but she recognized that look on Shirou Gojo’s face.

It wasn’t panic.

It wasn’t curiosity.

It was resolve.

---

Moonlight gleamed off Kyoto’s silent streets, the only sound now the distant howling of Cursed Spirits. A soft snowfall drifted through the air, carried by the cold wind.

Amidst the abandoned storefronts, flickering streetlamps, and emergency barricades, a lone figure dashed forward, breath ragged.

Illya.

Her platinum-white hair swirled around her like a silk ribbon, her coat flapping as she sprinted through the snow. Panic lit her crimson eyes as she glanced back—shadows flickered in pursuit.

Grotesque shapes skulked through the corners of her vision, twisted monsters that looked like crawling corpses with jagged teeth and leaking black mist. The reek of death hung in the air.

She pushed forward, lungs burning.

Suddenly, a sharp whistle split the night air. A silver arrow of pure cursed energy streaked through the shadows and impaled one of the spirits behind her. It shrieked, disintegrating into mist.

Illya stumbled to a stop, eyes wide.

From above, a figure landed with a gust of wind—calm, powerful, clad in dark black and silver. White hair. Piercing amber eyes. A strange bow that shimmered with residual cursed energy.

Her breath hitched. "Archer..." she whispered.

Shirou Gojo stepped between her and the remaining spirits without hesitation. His presence was calm, grounded, and lethal.

With a quick motion, he summoned three glowing arrows from thin air. His technique was seamless—his control, absolute.

The arrows struck with precise lethality, each finding its mark in a heartbeat. One cursed spirit was pinned to a wall. Another crumbled into ash before it could lunge. The third dissolved in a scream of black smoke.

Illya dropped to her knees, overwhelmed. Her body trembled—not from exhaustion, but from the resurgence of memories she had buried deep. The fear. The helplessness. The days of captivity. The face of “Mother.”

But also... his face. The boy who once saved her.

She then remembered. The memories of her past life. The memories that she thought had been forgotten.

A different world altogether yet still fairly familiar as this one. A world where there was a brimming with life, same as this one. A world where there was another moonlit world in it.

A different world altogether, yet still familiar in its weight and sorrow.

The haze of memory rippled through Illya’s mind like frost fracturing glass—images, feelings, scents. Her chest rose and fell sharply as tears welled up unbidden.

Snow… there had been snow then, too.

Not in Kyoto, but in a place far away. In a fortress-like manor hidden deep within a forest—a place steeped in magic, silence, and solitude.

In that other world, under that same moonlight, she had walked barefoot through snow with no warmth in her tiny frame. She was alone, a little girl wrapped in the pale linen of expectation and sacrifice.

And yet… not alone.

He had been there.

Her Berserker. Her Servant. Her Heracles.

The towering, silent figure who roared for her, killed for her, and died for her—again and again.

The sight of him in her mind now brought a tremor to her heart. That impossible wall of a man, brought down only when the world turned against them.

And then came the war.

The Fifth Holy Grail War. The battle that was never meant for her to survive.

She remembered that burning city. That fateful night. That final cry of despair. The terror of that ritual. Her elder—no, her creators—and their sick hopes.

And yet among the cruelty of it all, there had been another figure, distant and thought to be forgettable.

The red-clad Archer, standing high on broken beams and battlefields, his bow shimmering with unnatural light.

He had not been hers—but she had watched him fight. Always on the edge of reason, always cutting down his foes with the efficiency of a man who seemed to hate himself more than anyone else could.

Her red-eyed gaze flicked toward the man before her now, this unknown boy with a bow formed from the very air, those same sharp golden eyes, that same presence—cold, calm, precise.

It was him. There was no question. No doubt. The feeling was stronger now than it had ever been before.

“Why?” she breathed, still kneeling, still shaken. “Why are you here? You’re—”

Archer—lowered his bow. The cursed energy on it flickered and dimmed. “Stand up,” he said, voice quiet but firm. “We can’t stay here.”

But Illya didn’t move. She stared, still searching his face for an answer she wasn’t ready to hear.

“I remember now,” she said, her voice rising slightly. “I remember everything—everything.”

The wind howled. Cursed Spirit shrieks echoed from far-off streets.

“You were Archer in the Fifth Grail War. You weren’t supposed to be here! How are you here?” Her hands balled into fists, trembling.

He sighed, the way a man did when he’d already accepted that certain truths were more burdensome than bullets.

“Illya—”

“I remember Berserker!” she shouted, tears in her eyes now.

“I remember my castle! I remember everything that happened! You were Rin Tohsaka’s Servant, weren’t you? And we were fighting against each other! Why are you here now? Why are you—?”

He turned away, scanning the rooftops for more cursed presences.

“We need to get out of here. It’s not safe—“ he said.

“Answer me! Archer!”

Illya stood, fire igniting behind her exhaustion. She grabbed the sleeve of his coat. “Tell me what’s happening. Why are you here but younger? Why do you look different but still has your abilities? Why do I feel like I’m the only one who remembers!?”

His jaw tightened. His face remained still, unmoving, like a stone mask worn over wounds. “Because remembering doesn’t change what we have to do right now.”

The air grew cold around them, charged with a silence that seemed to hush even the snow.

Illya stared at him, breathless. “You’re him. You’re Archer, Rin Tohsaka’s Servant.”

“None of that matters now,” he said without looking at her, “Do you really want me to answer something that I don’t know myself?”

Illya blinked.

He looked down at her then—finally—and in that moment, the fire in his eyes gave way to something quieter. Sadder.

“I don’t know why I’m here either,” he admitted. “But I am. And you’re here too. That’s all we know so far.”

A cursed howl rose from a nearby alley. He turned quickly, summoning another arrow with practiced ease. Its light reflected in Illya’s wide eyes.

She swallowed her emotions, teeth clenched.

“Then what now?” she asked.

“We get you to safety.” His tone returned to that calm decisiveness. “And after that—”

“I want answers. Everything.”

He nodded once. “After tonight.”

Then he moved forward, guiding her down a safer alley while scanning the rooftops. Illya followed, trying to quiet her thoughts, but her chest was still too full.

The cold night swallowed them as they moved through the shadowed alleyways. Archer’s boots made no sound on the pavement, his coat rippling behind him like a ghost in the dark.

Illya kept close, her breath fogging with every step, the chill of the Kyoto night cutting deep into her coat and deeper still into her unease.

The cursed energy in the air had grown thicker. More oppressive.

She looked up at the figure ahead of her—silent, calculating, unmistakably familiar.

It was him. She was sure of it now. But how?

“Back there,” she started, her voice still hoarse from the adrenaline, “did you use your Noble Phantasm?”

She trailed off, unsure how to even describe what she’d seen. The way the weapon had formed in his hand—smoothly, instantly—without incantation, without materials, without effort.

As if it had always existed in the world and he’d simply reached into the air to pull it into being.

“How did you do that?” she asked, voice tighter now, frustration seeping in. “That bow—those swords you throw—is your Noble Phantasm an arsenal of weapons? I thought you were an Archer..”

He didn’t answer. He kept walking, gaze locked on the rooftops and alley mouths ahead.

“Are you going to ignore me again?” she snapped, jogging a step forward to match his pace. “Because I’m not going to stop asking. I deserve to know.”

“I don’t have the answers you want,” he said without looking at her.

“That’s a lie.” She stopped dead in her tracks. “And it feels familiar.. like it’s in the tip of my tongue…”

She took a breath, fists clenching. “I tried using magecraft months ago. I thought maybe something was still inside me. But there was nothing. My circuits… it’s like they’ve vanished.”

Archer paused a few steps ahead. The wind moved through the alley in a sharp gust.

Illya lowered her voice. “I can’t do anything anymore. I can’t even light a candle. But you—you’re still fighting like you're back in the War.”

Silence.

Illya stepped closer. “So what is it, Archer? Answer me this instant!”

Still no answer.

Her eyes narrowed. “Is it truly a Noble Phantasm?”

He didn’t respond.

That was all the confirmation she needed—and none at all.

Her voice dropped to a whisper. “Then… how are you activating it without a chant? Without mana supply? Without… a Master?”

He turned his head slightly at that. Just enough for her to see his eyes in the glow of a flickering streetlight. Gold. Cold. Distant.

“We’re literally in the middle of the lockdown and you want to question my abilities?” he said at last.

“Why not? And by the way, what are those thing? They’re not like Magical Beasts—“ she echoed, disbelief plain on her face.

“Cursed Spirits.”

Illya opened her mouth to ask more—but the air changed.

A guttural hiss slithered into the wind.

From the rooftops above and the shadows ahead, dark shapes began to appear—climbing over broken vents and concrete, slipping through alleys like oil through cracks.

Ten. Twenty. Maybe more.

Small, twitching things with too many limbs and open, gaping mouths—no intelligence, just hunger and hate. Drawn to energy, drawn to weakness.

Drawn to them.

Illya stepped back, eyes wide.

Archer summoned his bow.

Illya stared in awe and disbelief as it materialized again in a shimmer of energy—impossibly sleek and deadly, unlike any human weapon.

It didn’t look like a Noble Phantasm. Not in the traditional sense. There was no grand flourish. No summoning ritual. No chant or divine light.

Just the quiet click of it forming, and the subtle thrum of power.

One by one, the arrows formed next—shimmering constructs of energy, each tipped with lethal precision.

Before Illya could ask more, the spirits charged.

Archer moved with brutal speed. He loosed three arrows in rapid succession—each one striking a different target. One exploded in a burst of mist. Another screeched before crumpling to the pavement. A third burst into splinters against a wall.

Illya ducked as a spirit lunged toward her. Archer was already there, sliding forward, slashing with a conjured black dagger that wasn’t there moments ago. The creature shrieked and dissolved into cursed mist.

“That’s another thing! Why are you using swords but you’re an Archer?!” Illya cried out, her back to the wall now. “They keep changing!”

“Not the time!!”

Another beast hurled itself from the roof. Archer didn’t look—he just raised a hand, and another curved blade, this time white in color, appeared midair, slicing the thing clean in half.

Illya shielded her face from the rain of ichor.

He wasn’t using spells. He wasn’t using artifacts. It was like his very will reshaped the air.

“How can you summon more swords!?” she pressed. “How are you even doing this!?”

Archer didn’t answer. He fired two more arrows, then spun and hurled a second blade at a crawling spirit behind them.

Illya could feel it now—the pulse in the air. It was something older. Deeper. A reflection of something smaller than what could be named.

But none of it made sense.

Archer killed the last of the creatures with a sweeping strike from a heavy black blade that vanished the moment it cut through the spirit’s core. Silence followed.

Illya’s voice was barely audible. “Are those… Projections?”

Archer exhaled. His bow dissolved.

“Looks like I don’t have to answer then,” he said with a small smirk.

The last of the cursed spirits faded into the night, black mist trailing behind as if reality itself rejected their existence.

“What?!?!” Illya was shocked by the revelation. “That doesn’t make sense!”

“Look, all that matters is that yes, I can use Magecraft here. That’s all I want to share… little girl.”

This time, Illya felt her fuse was lit.

“Who are you calling a little girl?!?! We’re basically the same age!! And I’m growing in this world! I’m no longer a Homunculus! And I’m almost the same height as you—“

At this moment, he refused to look back as Illya kept throwing tantrums at him from behind while going on and on.

The street fell eerily quiet once more, broken only by Illya’s heavy breathing after her rant and the quiet thud of Archer’s footsteps as he moved forward.

She hesitated for a moment before following.

They turned a corner, the alley widening into what had once been a bustling main street—now eerily deserted.

The stores were all shuttered, metal security doors pulled down and spray-painted with talismans, charms, and desperate prayers. Cars were abandoned at odd angles, doors left ajar. Snow blanketed everything in a soft white hush, concealing the chaos underneath.

They walked carefully, their footsteps muffled by the snow. A few more blocks ahead, the warning signs and glowing blue barrier flares of the emergency perimeter flickered weakly—the edge of the lockdown zone.

Illya looked up at the tall buildings lining the road, then glanced toward Archer’s profile, barely visible under the pale moonlight.

“…What are those things?” she asked again, this time softer. “They weren’t magical beasts. They felt… wrong. Like they were stitched together from nightmares.”

Archer didn’t look at her. His gaze remained fixed ahead, scanning rooftops, shadows, everything. But he answered.

“Cursed Spirits,” he said simply. “They’re born from negative emotions—fear, hatred, sorrow, malice. All the things people try to hide. When those emotions build up and fester long enough… they can take form.”

Illya shivered, arms wrapping around herself. “So they’re like… monsters made out of human misery?”

“Worse than monsters. They don’t follow logic. They just exist—and the more people suffer, the more of them show up.”

“But why are they so many tonight?” she asked, her voice tight. “The streets feel like they’re crawling with them.”

“They are,” Archer replied grimly. “They’re all being unleashed here, or to be more precise. Someone led them here.”

Illya’s steps faltered. “Someone…?”

He gave a single nod. “The weaker ones are just attracted to the scent of fear and leftover cursed energy. But when they start clustering in this number, it usually means a higher-grade spirit’s moving behind the scenes. Or someone’s summoning them.”

A chill ran down Illya’s spine—not from the wind.

“…This world really is different, but still familiar,” she muttered.

Archer finally glanced at her.

“It is and isn’t. You’re not in Fuyuki anymore, that’s for sure.”

Illya frowned. “But that doesn’t explain how you’re here. Or me. I didn’t even get a chance to do anything, back then. The Grail… everything just—” Her breath hitched again. “And when I woke up in this world… I thought it was a dream. I thought I’d imagined it all. Until I tried to use Magecraft again, and—nothing.”

Archer’s jaw tightened.

“I can’t even cast a single spell,” she whispered. “I feel like something’s missing inside me. Like my body remembered my soul, but not my power.”

“That’s because you don’t have a single magic circuit anymore,” Archer said, quieter this time. “You’re not a homunculus anymore. Not in this world.”

She blinked, stopping in her tracks.

“…Then what am I?”

He paused at the question but didn’t face her. “Just a normal teenage girl right now.”

Illya lowered her gaze. The snow fell quietly again.

“Then what about you?” she asked. “You’re fighting like a Servant again. You summoned blades and arrows—just like before. You even used Projection magic!”

He was silent.

She pressed. “I’ve seen Projection Magecraft. I was born in the Einzbern Castle. I know how it works. That was a Noble Phantasm! That’s not how Noble Phantasms work the way others use it. It’s not—”

“I told you,” he interrupted quietly, “I don’t have all the answers either. Maybe I’m a shadow. Maybe I’m a ghost. Maybe I’m just a man who remembers too much and still doesn’t know why he’s been given another chance.”

His voice wasn’t harsh—but it was final.

They walked in silence for a few more steps. The glowing barrier of the perimeter shimmered closer now, casting faint light onto their path.

Illya finally said, “I don’t want to forget.”

She looked at him. “Even if the world forgets, I don’t want to. I don’t want to forget Berserker. Or the war. Even if I’m powerless now, I want to remember.”

Archer glanced at her, and for a moment, the shadow of a smile ghosted across his face.

“Good,” he said. “You’ll need that resolve.”

A distant rumble echoed through the city—deep, guttural, like something massive stirring in its sleep.

Archer’s eyes narrowed. “They’re coming.”

Illya’s breath caught.

“What is?”

He drew his bow again, its shimmer returning like a whisper of steel in the air.

“Dozens of them,” he said grimly. “More than dozens.”

He could hear the massive rumblings of footsteps that were unlike the steps of humankind.

The street trembled beneath them.

Illya instinctively stepped back as cracks rippled through the icy pavement, the faint blue barrier behind them flickering like a dying light.

From the far end of the road, beyond twisted traffic lights and snow-draped buses, shadows began to coalesce—at first shapeless, then solidifying into grotesque figures.

Dozens of cursed spirits spilled into the street, climbing over wreckage, slithering between shattered windows and gaping alleyways.

Some crawled on malformed limbs, others hovered with eyeless masks and elongated jaws, their bodies stitched together from what looked like burnt flesh, bone, and despair.

Illya froze. “T-That many…?”

Archer stepped forward, placing himself between her and the advancing horde. The cold wind caught his long coat as he raised his hand—and with a breath, a shimmering red pulse glowed from within his palm.

“Trace on.”

His bow snapped into existence—sleek, black, and taller than he was. In the next heartbeat, an arrow formed in his grasp, glowing faintly with a bit of Cursed Energy converted from his own will.

He nocked the arrow and let it loose.

The shot whistled through the air, tearing across the street in a brilliant arc of red and silver before impaling the lead cursed spirit, detonating with a thundering shockwave that sent the front ranks scattering.

Illya shielded her eyes. “That was—!”

But another arrow had already formed.

And another.

He fired rapidly, his arms a blur, every motion fluid and precise. Arrows rained down like streaks of divine fire, piercing eyes, skulls, twisted torsos.

Each one exploded with pinpoint force, not wasting a single flicker of energy. It wasn’t like modern Magecraft. It wasn’t flashy sorcery.

It was skill—refined, honed to the point of excellence.

Illya’s breath caught in her throat as she watched the street become a battlefield. Cursed spirits screeched, flailed, dissolved into black mist with each strike.

He moved forward as he fired, stepping over cracks and rubble like he’d danced this pattern a hundred times before.

But they kept coming.

The spirits were endless.

From behind a wrecked van, three of them lunged at once—one from above, one flanking from the left, and one charging low beneath the snow.

Illya cried out, “Archer!”

He moved.

The bow vanished mid-step, and in its place—two shimmering blades surged into his hands.

“Kanshou. Bakuya.”

Twin black-and-white swords gleamed under the moonlight, their edges humming with spiritual tension.

The moment they appeared, he twisted and parried the descending claw of the first spirit, then spun to drive both blades into the charging second one’s torso.

A shockwave of silver erupted from the impact, erasing it from existence.

The third never got the chance to react—he pivoted and flung Kanshou like a chakram, the blade curving through the air and slicing cleanly through the spirit’s elongated neck before boomeranging back into his waiting hand.

Illya was breathless. Her heart pounded.

She had seen Servants fight before. She had watched Berserker clash with Saber in the fields of Fuyuki. But this—this was different.

This was clean. Ruthless. Efficient. Not the overwhelming power of a monster, but the fatal precision of a man who knew death like an old friend.

He weaved through the chaos with perfect control. One cut here, a parry there, a blade thrown and then called back through a ripple of space. His footwork never missed a beat. His eyes never wavered.

Dozens became twenty.

Then fifteen.

And as the remnants of the lesser curses recoiled, something else stepped into view.

The snow stopped falling.

The wind went still.

Illya’s breath hitched as the last cursed spirit split open, torn from within by something crawling out of its chest.

The air thickened.

From the cloud of black mist emerged a hulking figure—twice the height of a man, its skin a patchwork of crimson tattoos and exposed sinew, its eyes glowing like molten gold.

It wore no clear shape—only arms where they didn’t belong, teeth where there should’ve been ribs, and a twisted mockery of a human skull cracked down the center.

He narrowed his eyes.

“Special-Grade.”

The spirit tilted its head and grinned with a mouth too wide, leaking black fog from between its jagged teeth. It spoke, but not with words—its voice crawled into their heads, like the sound of insects behind wallpaper.

“yOu aRe… A stRoNg pRey..”

Illya clutched her coat tighter. “It can speak…?”

He raised his blades and stepped forward without hesitation. “Run towards outside the perimeter,” he said, voice low.

Illya didn’t move. “But—”

“Now.”

His tone left no room for argument.

As the cursed spirit roared, the very ground beneath it cracked. Shadows surged outward like veins, splitting the street in jagged spirals. The remaining lesser curses scattered, repelled by the presence of something greater, something older.

He rolled his shoulders once, blades in both hands, his expression calm.

The fight wasn’t over.

It was just beginning.