Family Heirlooms

family heirlooms

There are ways to tell them apart even if you can’t sense the intuitive difference between Archer and Assassin, here in Chaldea.

Both of the Servants calling themselves Emiya are tall dark ashen-haired men with cold and empty eyes, it’s true. It’s easy to mix them up that way. They both hold themselves aloof from others often. Both can be said, if you’re uncharitable, to brood in their spare time.

But the Archer who uses that name, his steel-colored eyes rarely stay empty for long. Like the bright red of his cloak and mantle, they become vivid more easily than you’d think at first. As rare as it is to catch even a trace of a sincere smile on his face, there’s still a fierce, bitter life to this man who’s died so many times before. He’s stubborn like that.

This new Assassin, he’s different. Nothing appears to matter to him anymore. Even the tattered dark cloak he wears seems tired as it clings to him. You could try to meet his eyes for an hour or more, and you wouldn’t see a sign of life in them.

He smiles, now and then, so wearily it kind of hurts to look at. His face looks like it belongs to a young child resigned to starvation.

Those rare moments when that Archer grins, it’s so much more animated than that. He knows how to work a sneer, even if it’s likely to collapse into an awkward fluster the next moment.

You see, they’re nothing alike. Archer’s so on fire he burns himself; Assassin’s just ashes.

(But after a battle, when no human from Chaldea is looking, Archer reaches for Assassin’s hand without touching it, searches his face for the kindness he once knew, so long ago.)

My favorite game to play while re-reading the Fate Stay VN is count the amount of times Kiritsugu would’ve had a full-on breakdown during an Illya scene

THERE IS NO SUCH THING AS COUNTER COUNTER JUDGING-

     “ If that’s what you think then you clearly haven’t been at this quite as long as I have. ”

@the-little-german-mage

It looked hopeless. All three of them well-trained bounty hunters probably hired by her family to take her in at all costs and they were relentless in their pursuit. Once they caught her, it was over. Any desperate cries for help fell only her pursuers and cowards nestled into the safety of their homes. Her fate seemed to be sealed.

However---

The next scream to rip through the air did not belong to the girl. But was one of her pursuers. A sizable dagger having found his back, he releases the girl’s hair from his cruel grip and drops to the ground like pile of trash. Seeming to have materialized out of thin air like a vengeful wraith emerging from the darkness, a human figure wrapped in a tattered, dull-red cloak stepped into the waning light and showed himself. The fallen man’s companions overcome with anger their comrade slain before their eyes release the girl and move to attack the man without hesitation.

      But their desires for vengeance end almost as quickly as they had began. Quicker than lightning, Assassin rushed forward capturing and twisting the wrist of the brazen, knife-wielding soldier-for-hire in his grasp before bringing an elbow to brutishly slam directly into the center of the man’s chest with a sickening sound. Just like that, the man’s heart had been ruptured, reversing his blood flow, killing him almost instantaneously.  

    The woman---clearly more intelligent and experienced than her partner---hurriedly leaps back a few feet and expertly trains her automatic on the cloaked figure, finger squeezing tightly the trigger without a shred hesitation. Every single one of her movements carried out with decisive purpose.  In the next instant an explosive rang through the air but instead of the man of the cloak it is the woman who falls upon the dirt road at the same time as her comrade, blood pooling beneath her fallen body, the serrated blade of a combat knife embedded deeply into her neck. 

The now three corpses lie upon the ground unmoving, all signals of life having fled their rapidly cooling corpses, their expressions twisted in pain and confusion told that they hadn’t even a chance to register their deaths. With a sigh of resignation the enigmatic figure only adjusts the bandages over his mouth before stepping over their bodies with the casualness of avoiding a puddle in the rain .

“...Can you stand?” The being that had executed the three with viper-like cruelty spoke disinterestedly in a voice that perfectly matched his gloomy countenance as he held out his hand. “I’ve come in response to your summons, Master.”

avxsta replied to your post “You and me, we’re in a club now (The loser club :^) )”

"woah hold on man, chill :/

“ No. ”

Actual live footage of Assassin EMIYA on Valentines day captured courtesy of Chaldea’s security cameras