[center][img]https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/271031448755109888/452429537993818112/AchBanner.png[/img]
[h2]’Lancer Prime’[/h2]
[h2]Ajax’s Grave, Foreigner’s Lowlands[/h2][/center]

Some would call it a bet. Others a prayer. Others still would deride it as a cornered rat lashing out.

Achilles would do nothing of the sort. His enemy had chosen to place her life on the line and commit to her course fully, with no hesitation, looking at the end of the road and facing him head on.

His blood boiled, and he hated that he had to show this to the killer before him, but, begrudgingly. . .

Even if it was to escape, even if she had killed his cousin, even if she was an enemy he absolutely cannot forgive, he would not mock that determination. Rather, in her last moments, he would acknowledge it and answer on his own.

To have held off his hundred blows.

To have evaded his killing strike by a hair’s breadth.

To possess the determination to trudge forward.

I will acknowledge you, then. The determination in those eyes, the gleam of one who strives to live just for one more second, the commitment to one’s path. I will respond to it in the only manner I am allowed to now.

It is the only gift I can give — to an enemy I hate, but that I will not disrespect, to an enemy that is about to die, this is my farewell.

I will answer your every attempt and absolutely—

“—Shatter them all right before your eyes.”

Saber had managed to avoid death once again. That, in itself, was commendable and something that spoke highly of her abilities as a warrior. But she had made one fatal mistake.

To begin with, Achilles had nothing to fear even if she did get close for a variety of reasons. Beyond even his confidence in his skills, the fact was that close range was where ‘Achilles absolutely held the advantage’.

Tackling an enemy is not a strategy that will work if you cannot make them so much as budge from their spot. Her mistake had been attempting this against someone that was as an unyielding wall, right before her.

The key of the matter was in Achilles’ divine armor, the greatest work of the Olympian blacksmith, Hephaestus, that was doubtlessly one of the many proofs of how beloved by the gods he had been during his lifetime. Beyond even the unfair effect it had working alongside his immortal body, the quality and protections built into the craftsmanship made it an absolute first-rate Noble Phantasm worthy of the second greatest hero of Greece. In terms of pure defense, it outweighed even the skin of a certain hero from Germany that had bathed in dragon’s blood.

Furthermore, the mistake had only been made worse by the fact that what she was attempting counted, for all intents and purposes, as the appropriate situation to trigger its second passive effect of enhancing the abilities of someone that was already a first-rate hero to their absolute limit.

Defenses that even the Rank of A would fail against.

Strength that approached that of monsters absolutely beyond man.

The bravery to try such a course of action without flinching, confident to the point of absurdity.

What she had attempted to tackle could not be said to be a man anymore — rather, the more fitting term would be ‘moving fortress’. And so, crashing against him, Achilles’ free arm came to envelop without so much as budging backwards, trapping her.

“Come to think of it.”

Ah, so this is it, then?

“When you killed my cousin he could not even move to escape his death, could he?”

The arm pressed—

“I guess it’s only fair, then.”

—and pressed—

“Now, stay silent, and enjoy the sunset. This is your requiem.”

—and [i]pressed[/i]—

“I’d normally go for something more dramatic, you know? But as it is, well, I’m really angry right now, so this is the best you’ll get. Maybe if the circumstances were different. . .”

—and [b][i]pressed[/i][/b].

“Maybe then we could have had a fun fight. But, sorry. This is an execution, you see.”

And Yamato Takeru, Saber of the Second Holy Grail War, [i]died.[/i]

[@addamas]