[color=82ca9d][center][h2]Archer Actaeon[/h2][/center][/color]
[color=82ca9d][center][h3]Petshop base; The hunt begins[/h3][/center][/color]

Night had fallen over Tokyo once more and with it the second stage of the war had begun; and unlike last night he was in a better position to participate. Last night he had been able to do nothing but occasionally check the reports from his hounds as they scoured the city; most had an uneventful night, enjoying a run though the metropolis, but the group he had sent to the tower had seemingly found the war in its entirety. He had seen two Servant’s in action, a Lancer and a Rider fighting in the skies over a park, and had caught a glimpse of some Servant who he found it difficult to even look at. Powerful opponents for a man like himself.

And a hound had died. Killed by a foe Laelap’s, one of his best trackers and hunters, had been unable to detect until the last, fatal moment. It must have been a Servant, as he couldn’t imagine any person born in the current age being capable of something like that, and even among the heroes of this war only the Assassin class would have the ability to do something like that.

These were the opponents he would have the deal with if he or Mercedes wanted to claim the grail. This was who he was hunting. Could he do it? Was he capable of winning this war?

Archer nodded in response to his Master’s query, the only response the mute hero could or would give in the current circumstances. He was ready for that hunt. He was ready to answer that challenge.

The hunt, in fact, was already under way. They had visited the site of Laelap’s demise and found the traces of two Masters, Archer’s hounds collecting their scent and the scent of their mana before they moved on. Mercedes had a hunch as to the identity of one of those Masters and had brought them here to this small apartment opposite a pet shop somewhere not too far from the tower that had been the centre of last night’s events. It seemed a fair assumption, given that the magus was known to live in the city and was a specialist of sorts in familiarcraft, that he was a Master in this war. Given how many scents his hounds could detect in the building Laelap’s had died in, many of which seemed to belong to familiars, there was a good chance he was the Master of one of the Servant’s he had detected last night.

Archer watched the entrance to the pet shop closely. Daisuke had returned home some time ago, entering through the front entrance of the business downstairs and retreating to the apartment upstairs. The Servant had no idea if he was the one they were looking for and with another Servant potentially in the area it was too dangerous to send a hound down to check his trail. It was similarly too dangerous to attack a magus in their home without numerous precautions being taken, even if it felt like Daisuke hadn’t even set up a bounded field around his home. Destroying the building in its entirety, workshop, pet shop and every occupant together, was a possibility, but not one Archer was willing to entertain. A hunter did not catch its prey by burning down the forest it lived in.

The door to the pet shop opened and Daisuke exited the building, robe across his shoulders and crown atop his head; a strange person, but one who seemed to be on the move. Archer pulled the notebook and pencil from his pocket and wrote a note for his Master; he couldn’t see anyone with Daisuke and he couldn’t detect another Servant either, but with Assassin still presumably active in the war that didn’t mean that there wasn’t one nearby. Finishing writing he held the notebook out for Mercedes to see what he had written.

[i]Kill or follow?[/i]


[@Yankee][@Duoya]