フェイト／ステイナイト Ep 11
Fate/stay night episode 11

SPOILER Summary/Synopsis:

After completing three hours of sword training with Saber, Rin grabs him to train by reinforcing the kerosene lamps. Rin finds in the store room a group of solid steel (silver?) objects such as tea kettle, a knife, and what was a bamboo sword. Saber joins Rin and states she was unaware of this ability of Shirou’s. Rin too is amazed and frustrated as she believes that Shirou doesn’t know his own abilities, but even she had been unaware he was capable of such sorcery.

Meanwhile, Shirou is failing at Rin’s tasks when Shinji calls him. Since Shirou has skipped two days of school, Shinji hasn’t been able to talk with him and Shinji wants to talk with Shirou alone, making Shirou promise not to tell Rin. Shirou arrives at the school and notices that despite being the middle of the day, no one is around. Immediately, Shirou feels pain as the barrier is erected. Shirou discovers everyone in the school are either unconscious are nearly there when Shinji arrives, boasting of his trap and how he plans to teach Rin who the better person is. He also plans to punish Shirou and Rin for rejecting his alliance offer.

When Shinji admits to possibly killing Fuji-nee, Shirou snaps. He comes after Shinji and is not harmed by Shinji’s counterattack. Shinji panics Rider appears. Shinji orders Rider to kill Shirou. She attacks and Shirou is hit in both arms and legs. However, when she goes for the killing blow, her weapon seems to strike metal. Since she cannot kill Shirou with her weapons, she simply kicks him out the nearby window. As he falls, Shirou is upset with himself for not saving anyone and then summons Saber, who flies out of her teleporation gate and catched Shirou before he falls. Shirou instructs her to take on Rider and he’ll deal with Shinji.

In the school, Saber and Rider battle while Shirou chases Shinji. Shirou catches his former friend and begins to strangle him, threatening to kill him if Shinji doesn’t drop the barrier. Shinji tells Rider to drop the barrier which she reluctantly does. Shirou wants Shinji to give up his command spells and thus be out of the Holy Grail War, when Shinji can then seek refuge at the Kotomine Church. Shinji refuses and Rider comes to his defense, suggesting a retreat. Saber comes up and warns Shirou to get back. Rider stabs herself in the neck and uses her Nobel Phantasm ability to cause herself and Shinji to escape, leaving a massive wake of destruction at the school.

The battle over, authorities arrive to take out the students and teachers, all of whom are reported to be OK. Shirou passes out and is taken home where he dreams of the night of the attack ten years earlier and of his step-father. He wakes up to find Rin attending to him. After thanking her, Rin tells him to thank Saber too since his wounds appear to have been healed by her. Shirou finds Saber meditating in her armor and she’s angry by his actions. To her surprise, he apologizes and accepts her as his fighter. However, he won’t agree to not fight along side her and she reluctantly accepts this arrangement.

Thoughts/Review:

Well now, well now. Finally, Shirou gets a clue, but almost too late as he faces both Rider and Shinji without Saber there. I suppose Shirou only wishes to see the best in people, even one as scummy as Shinji. Still, I loved how when he summoned Saber, she was not only at the ready but literally flew up to grab him mid-fall. Even in her weakened state, Saber is still stronger than Rider, then then I would guess that everyone is stronger than Rider to some degree. And yet Rider has to be drawing mana from the life force of others such as those in the school, right? If that’s the case, then she should have more power to draw from and if that’s the case, it makes Saber even more impressive as a Servant.

Back to Shirou — I’m a bit at a loss here. I know that Shirou’s ability can strengthen items and even repair them as we’ve seen this before. However, with the broom, Shirou seems to have transmuted the wooden handle into a metal one — alchemy. That almost seems to be what Rin describes magic as with the laws of equivalency. If that’s Shirou’s ability, what has Rin so shocked about the artifacts she found and showed to Saber? Is he literally creating these things from nothing or simply turning established objects into steel? Also, while I know Saber is being credited with Shirou’s incredible healing ability, might this also be an ability of Shirou’s? After all, if he can repair a heater with his power, why not himself?

So Shirou realizes finally that he can’t do this without Saber and promises to have her fight. Of course he’s going to fight too, but I like that they both come to an understanding on the subject.

The first hints of romance between Saber and Shirou appear in this episode. Saber surprised me with her desire to wear that one dress because Shirou complimented her wearing it. Then there’s the cute but cliched moment where Rin catches them in a moment and they get embarrassed and try to play it off. Rin also seems to have special feelings for Shirou again. ^_^

With Rider and Shinji having escaped, I wonder where they would have fled to. The school was a great HQ for them because Shinji could power Rider that way. I suppose they’ll have to go somewhere that contains a lot of people.

BTW, was that Rider who produced wings or was it somehow Saber?

I remember someone remarking on how terrible the animation is for this series at times. There were a lot of still shots, which is surprising considering how popular the eroge seems to have been. I wonder why this didn’t get a bigger budget.

Its a shame that I can’t watch these faster because if I didn’t need sleep, I’d marathon the rest of the series tonight. *lol*