Rin gave the darkened servant a playful smile in return. "Naturally. Who's better than me at getting you to behave?"
The normal Archer smirked. "It took you a command seal just to do that."
Rin crossed her arms and glared at him. "Who asked you?"
"Well, it still involves
me, doesn't it? A more overtly assholish me, but me nonetheless."
Rin turned back to the darker version. "Ignore... the other you. With the two of us working together again, we'll find Isa's sister in no time at all, and then we can go back to the apartments and talk over tea, just like old times."
"More like I served it to you and then you made me clean up the house afterwards. I recall us having a few pleasant conversations, but it was between you barking orders at me and making me do all your housework."
"But... you like doing housework," said Hakuno.
Archer managed to keep his wince at Hakuno's statement internalized.
Mille blearily looked at the group, struggling as she was to not fall asleep from the combination of her exhaustion and the warmth of Lancer's arms. "Get a room," she muttered. She drifted off to sleep shortly after.
Then Kiyoshi hugged her and she gave her awkward response. The boy let go and spoke. "Oh, sorry, I never told you my name. I'm Kiyoshi, Shirou and Sakura's son", he said, smiling.
Rin forced as friendly of a smile as she could on her face, still not quite having reconciled with her new position as "Auntie." "Rider told me about you, actually." Trying to think of something to say, she noted the boy's appearance. "But even then, I think I would have figured it out pretty quickly. You look a lot like your dad." It was a bit of an awkward start, but it was better than nothing.
***
"Honestly, even if his castle is capable of cutting off those types of connections, Rider should have been able to feel Sakura arriving in this dimension before she was kidnapped regardless. It doesn't give his threat that much more weight," Archer said. He frowned. "And your father's philosophy sounds suspiciously like Satoshi's. And it has the same flaws. It's painfully simplistic, actually. Not all people who are forced to kill other people are monsters, and there are those who haven't killed a single person that are complete and utter monsters. That philosophy is idiotic in that it assumes the world is black and white. Nothing is that simple."
His eyes narrowed into a glare. "And he threatened to kill me after I threatened the idiot that thought the best way to prevent a potential fight from happening was to shoot my Master in the head. If he hadn't missed, I assure you he'd be dead by now. He defended a man who nearly took an innocent girl's life, and then threatened to kill me in front of that same girl. That makes him a hypocrite."
Hakuno herself then spoke up. "Wait... what do you mean, Servants are monsters? That isn't right. That's not right at all! They have feelings and thoughts just like the rest of us, why should we just kill them so casually?"
Rin turned to Hakuno, surprised. "But... aren't you a Master? You have to kill Servants by default to get the Grail. Why participate if you have problems with Servants dying?"
Archer turned to Rin, his face grim. "The Grail War we're involved in... is a bit different from the one you remember. The price for losing is the losing team's death, both Master and Servant. It's very difficult to back out once you're a participant as well. And..."
Hakuno squeezed her eyes shut. "I have amnesia. I don't remember anything before participating in the War. Even if it was for my own survival, even if it turned out no one got deleted after all... I still hate it that I had to cause other people's deaths. I hate it."
Rin stood there for a moment in stunned silence. Then, quietly, she spoke. "Kishinami-chan... look, you shouldn't beat yourself up over that. You didn't have any choice. What would have letting yourself die have done? And besides, they turned out to be OK later, right?" She frowned. "Although..." Rin turned to face her tall lookalike. "Wait, that doesn't mean you think that Kishinami-chan's a monster too, now does it? What about people forced to fight to the death against their will? And what about soldiers, or police officers? Honestly, I think Archer's right, the more you think about it, the more silly this philosophy of your dad's sounds."
She stared at her look-alike a bit oddly for a moment as she finally processed the other girl's appearance before continuing. "As for the Servant thing... well, most people don't have as many problems killing Servants because they're familiars. Powerful familiars, but familiars nonetheless. But I can see why Kishinami-chan thinks the way she does, and all the semantics and the like concerning whether Servants should be considered human or not aside, it still makes Blondie a complete jerk for threatening Archer."
Rin crossed her arms over her chest. "The reason he's still a creep regardless is because he threatened to do it in front of Hakuno. Even if Blondie thinks Servants are monsters, Kishinami-chan clearly doesn't. She..." Rin hesitated for a bit, but after a few seconds, found her voice again. "She and Archer are pretty close, from what I've seen. Killing Archer right in front of her would have traumatized her. She was already in bad shape from nearly being shot. Regardless of what you think of Archer, the fact that Blondie thought it was more than ok to kill someone in front of a traumatized girl, and someone she's acquainted with at that, makes Blondie far more of a monster than any Servant."
Not wanting to leave things on such a grim note, Rin changed the subject. "As for..." Rin visibly struggled for a bit with her words before continuing. "As for R-ruby, I could probably take on your brother using... t-that wand, but Kishinami-chan is an inexperienced Magus who isn't that used to... that thing's abilities yet. It's more that Kishinami-chan herself isn't ready for the fight than anything."
"Aww, you managed to say something halfway nice about me~ Maybe you aren't a completely horrible person after all~" Ruby wiggled playfully in the air. "Just a mostly awful person~"
Rin turned to glare at Ruby. Quietly, through gritted teeth, Rin said, "I'll deal with you. Later. The apartments. Count on it."
While Rin was glaring at Ruby, Archer turned to his own counterpart. "As much as I wish you were the one that the imbecile talking over the phone was referring to specifically, I think he was talking about me. It doesn't do much to reduce the idiocy of it all, but at least that should make more sense to you."
***
Finn could see Forest suppressing the urge to groan at the line he made, and it took effort to not wince in response. The line had just slipped out- pickup lines like that weren't normally his style. He'd been told that his appeal was his simple, down home charm, and that didn't come from random pickup lines. He felt somewhat ashamed about it, but did his best to hide it. No need to bring down the already somewhat sour mood going on even further by showing a sour face.
"Well, we appreciate the help and . . ." She looked at Rider and touched her arm. She said, "My Admrial Ackbar sense is telling me that 'It's a trap!'"
Finn grinned at the reference. Mille had woken up long enough to hear it and groaned. The young man turned to his sister. "Well hey, she has good taste in the movies she references, you gotta give her credit for that."
Mille just pinched the bridge of her nose and slowly shook her head.
Finn then turned to Rider. He didn't know what all was going on, but he did hear Rider's request at least once. "I'll let you borrow mine. I don't know for sure if it'll work here, but hey, it's worth a shot, right? All you'd need then is the number."
Then Forest issued marching orders.
Raising her voice, she said, "Okay, Team Asshole, find Vanessa. Lancer knows the way back to the stronghold. Hako-chan, you stay with Isa until we get back. Asian Wonder Woman, I just fought your brother, he doesn't seem like the type to take prisoners. He is the type to have issues though. Lots and lots of issues. Unfortunately, night's wasting and the sun will be up soon. I don't fancy becoming crispy. Everyone, let's go."
Hakuno, still a bit upset over the memories that had been dug up and learning the fact that Satoshi had threatened to kill Archer in front of her, regardless held her ground. She nodded and stood close to Isa, doing her best to seem strong for her new friend. Isa couldn't afford for her to see her source of support falter any further. Archer wasn't much farther away, intending to be the support to Hakuno's support. Ruby lazily fluttered down and sat on Hakuno's head.
Rin, in the meantime, turned to the members of "Team Asshole." "Listen up. Once we go out there, as far as you're all concerned,
I'm the one in charge. So I expect you to follow my orders, or face the consequences."
Finn grinned and gave her a quick salute. "Yes ma'am!" He then turned to Forest, the rare signs of something resembling a frown crossing his features. "Hmm... what about my sister though? She's in pretty bad shape, and I want to make sure she's alright. Is she going back with the apartment group?"
"I'm right over here, you idiot," Mille grumbled.
