The look in Vash's direction was half a cross between anger and despair. Here was another seduced by an ideal that could save nobody in the end, and yet one that Archer could bear no intrinsic malice towards: it wasn't the blonde that had made him into what he was. Maybe, though, he could be dissuaded from his path. He owed him enough to try, at least.

"Once, there was a boy. Remembering nothing before the fire that destroyed everything he knew, his rescuer took him in. He passed on his wish to be a superhero and the boy turned it into his own ideal. For years, he was powerless to save anyone, until after the same war that had burned the town returned," Archer stated, skipping over the unimportant parts, "But afterwards, the bitter truth of the world intruded. Where people needed saving, he would fight no matter the danger. This man fought and killed if it was the only option, again and again and again. Yet he saved thousands of times the amount he killed.

"Yet always there was someone that couldn't be saved, someone that had to be sacrificed. And when the man's power wasn't enough to save even those he could see, it was the world itself that supplied the power--in death he would serve it as a protector of humanity. He kept saving, until in the end those he saved betrayed him and he was executed for starting the same war he had stopped.

"But protecting humanity isn't the same as saving people. It's killing those that would threaten its existence, seeing nothing but the ugliness of the world forever. How many billions were saved by the endless massacres? Never everyone."

He paused, looking away, "So forget about such an impossible goal, before chasing it betrays you entirely."

Then the man was gone, faded into spirit form and once more in the city. None but Saber could possibly know the hypocrisy of his words. After all, hadn't he told Rin that he would do his best? Though really, trying to save someone from an ideal as warped as his was certainly a valuable attempt.