[center][h2]Saber Bokuden[/h2][/center]

Saber pushed himself away from the railing. Letting out a sigh as he took a couple steps forward so that he was standing in the middle of the bridge, not quite taking a fighting stance just yet even as Archer nocked an arrow to his bow. There was no rush to react; if he was the honourable sort then the duel wouldn’t start until they were both ready. “The Masters aren’t to be harmed; that’s fine with me. That’s the way Servant’s should fight.”

It seemed Subaru wouldn’t be staying out of this fight entirely. Saber felt the surge of strength as the music flowed through him, boosting his agility slightly and making him even faster than before. That meant this Archer’s Master would be able to do something similar, under the ill-defined rules of this duel, and sure enough a nearby bush exploded into something ten times the size as some kind of magecraft took hold of it. That both of them would have supporters during this fight made things more complicated, but not to the extent that it worried Saber any.

Still… he didn’t want to do this. He didn’t want to fight this battle.

It wasn’t due to fear of losing, as his Master seemed to assume, nor was it because he had some aversion to combat. No, he’d simply hoped to avoid this pointless scuffle because it didn’t achieve anything. He’d long ago reached the stage where battles for the sake of battle no longer interested him, so he had to ask what purpose this duel served other than to sate this Archer’s urge for battle? It wasn’t necessary for them to fight before forming an alliance, it was simply an indulgence. Unlike Archer, Saber didn’t yearn for the thrill of battle, they didn’t make him feel alive; that might have been the case in his youth, but he’d given up that kind of life a long time ago.

“Haaa, I’m showing my age again.” Saber inhaled, taking a deep breath of cold night air. He exhaled and placed a hand on the scabbard of his odachi, just below the tsuba, and with a flick of his thumb loosened the sword from its sheath. “Alright, let’s do this!”

Saber bent his knees and in the blink of an eye dashed from the centre of the bridge to the base of the light pole Archer was balanced atop. As he came to a stop he drew his sword and swung in the same, smooth motion, the blade slicing through the light pole at an angle without making a sound.

With his opponent’s footing now hopefully disrupted, Saber straightened his legs and launched himself upwards towards Archer. With a twist of his wrist and flick of his arm he brought the sword around and up with his ascent in another stroke. He aimed to hit his opponent with a shallow cut from navel to shoulder, spacing himself in such a way that only the tip of his long sword would reach his foe.