[center][h3][sub]           Tohsaka Manor[/sub]
???, Abandoned House[/h3][/center]

...foolish. All too foolish.

Yes, there was no doubt that, among the Servants of this Holy Grail War, in terms of physical offense and defense, Rostam was superb. No doubt, he was secure in that notion, and rightly so. However, in this instance his actions could only be called overconfident. 

Yes, that monstrous arrow's speed meant reacting to it would be difficult, but at the very least an effort to dodge or deflect it would have been enough to mitigate the force behind it; namely, with the strength that Rostam boasted, it would be reasonable to think that even a hasty attempt to deflect the arrow would at least make it a notably lesser threat. Instead, though, he had simply chosen to rely on his physical defenses, allowing that arrow to strike him at full force.

Unfortunately, if Rostam stood at the peak of Heroic Spirits in terms of physical capacity, then the enemy Servant stood at the peak in the art of the bow. 

As if that absurd defense worthy of the title "Noble Phantasm" did not exist, the arrow struck Rostam and bored a hole through. Piercing the great Servant's midsection, the sheer force behind the arrow was something that seemed to be utterly impossible. No...even if his mace and that arrow had collided at full force, something told him that the arrow would have, inexplicably, come out as the victor. If one were to convert its strength to the standard scale, then it could be said to have left the realm of that very scale; in other words, such codifiers as "an A rank blow" had become irrelevant. 

Was this the result of a Noble Phantasm? There certainly hadn't been the release of a true name, but perhaps the enemy Servant passively possessed such a thing, or perhaps it was an innate capacity that defied logic. Regardless of the cause, that blow which could be granted the moniker of "EX" struck Rostam, barely slowed down by the obstruction of his Noble Phantasm.

This is a death sentence. Even with Rostam's level of constitution, this lone arrow is enough to bring him to an early grave. Or at least it would have been, were it not for that simple capacity of the Rider's to endure in spite of possessing fatal injuries. And yet, even that would fail him were another such blow from the unknown assailant to come down. 

However, that attack did not seem to come. The enemy Servant and Master were still nearby, likely watching from within the layers of protection that the Bounded Fields surrounding the abandoned manor afforded them, and yet they did not seem to wish to pursue another attack. Was it because they simply did not intend on killing Rostam, or was it because that lone arrow was something with a proportional cost, leaving them unable to act for the time being?

Regardless, with an injury that should have been fatal were it not for Rostam's own abilities, and indeed that would become fatal were it not healed before reaching such a state, a new crossroads was now present before the Master and Servant. To advance forwards with a Servant who could no longer fight, or to fall back in the face of the enemy.

[@Beloss] [@Holy Grail]