フェイト／ステイナイト Ep 09
Fate/stay night episode 09

SPOILER Summary/Synopsis:

Saber faces her opponent, the Servant “Assassin” who was known as SASAKU Kojirou. Saber feels duty bound to give her real name as well, but Assassin is not interested. They exchange blows and while Assassin is able to counter Saber, he is not able to land a blow on her. To her amazement, he is able to determine the size of her invisible sword though and he accuses her of holding back. He decides to unleash an attack on her — Hiken Tsubame-Gaeshi. Saber just manages to elude the three-slash attack and identify it to Assassin’s delight, though he states his poor footing aided her in escaping the third slash.

Meanwhile, Rider uses Saber’s fight with Assassin as cover to make an entrance to the temple where she finds herself under attack from skeletal warriors. Rider then encounters the witch, who remarks on Rider’s using Saber as a diversion. Their fight is interrupted when Saber decides to unleash on Assassin, causing typhoon-like winds (and energy?) to affect a wide area. Rider uses the distraction to flee. Shirou, who’d waken up with pain and discovered Saber missing, arrives at the temple and can’t make his way up the steps of the temple grounds. Assassin and Saber sense a third Servant, aborting Saber’s attack. Assassin returns to the temple gates, remarking that if Saber wants to continue the fight, she’ll have to come into the temple grounds.

Shirou makes it up to Saber just as her armor vanishes and she falls back unconscious where Shirou catches her. He carries her home where he’s met by Rin, who teases him about his holding Saber. Rin takes Saber back to her room and instructs Shirou to make tea. Shirou does this and soon is joined by Rin and Saber, who has recovered. Shirou and Saber get into an argument over her going to battle on her own.

Rin ends up explaining that Shirou just doesn’t want anyone, including Saber, hurt which is why he gets involved in the fights. Hearing this, Saber decides to train Shirou on sword fighting in exchange for her listening to his opinions. Rin objects, citing the fact that Shirou still couldn’t defeat a Servant. Saber replies that if Shirou is going to get involved, he may as well know how to fight.

Thoughts/Review:

Saber’s actions are not only irrational but also illogical. She knows that she has limited mana coming from Shirou, so even though the other Servants need to be defeated, what point is there in fighting at less than 100%? Granted, the knightly thing to do is to meet your enemy face-to-face no matter what the circumstances, so I suppose that explains her actions. However, that is a mindset that is difficult for me to get around because the intelligent thing to do is to plan a strategy and follow certain tactics. I guess I’ve played too many strategy games.

Speaking of illogical, there’s the somewhat annoying tripe coming from Shirou’s mouth. I understand him not wanting Saber to be hurt and I appreciate that. However, he goes a bit beyond this by not wanting Saber to fight at all when she’s a powerful warrior. Logically, he should be trying to figure out a way to increase Saber’s mana in an ethical and “lawful good” manner (since Saber is a knight). Saber training Shirou to fight will be interesting though. I do look forward to that.

As expected, Shinji did feed the information to Shirou, knowing that Saber would likely be used (though I bet that Shinji expected Shirou to send Saber and not Saber to rebel and go out). Still, who is this witch? She’s very powerful to take on a Servant. She handled Rider pretty easily and she’s more than a witch if she has skeletal warriors at her beck-and-call.

As to Assassin, I really don’t have much to say there yet other than I’m reminded that I need to write an article on a certain 1980 mini-series from the U.S.. *lol*

So I got my Saber goodness to a limited degree and now I guess it is soon time for Archer to make a return. I’d love to see Saber and Archer team up, backed up by Rin (who’s guarded by Shirou). ^_^