As expected, Illya finally shows up to kill Shirou and Saber. Will she get her wish?
While it’s obvious that Illya in Fate/stay night is more brutal compared to her counterpart in Prisma Illya or even her mother, don’t let her cute appearance fool you. From what happened during the battle, she was very self-confident in herself because of her magical ability. Heck, she even manages to materialize two wired birds and Rin had a hard time bringing them down (she could only defeat two of them). This just shows how powerful Illya truly is, especially since she can control a servant like Berserker.
As for the fight, while it looks good, it’s quite apparent that Shirou did not try to be a hero and sacrificed himself like in the Fate arc in order to save Saber considering that he received help from Rin and Archer. He knows that he couldn’t do much. At the same time, he also realizes the pact he made with Saber and decided to seek her out. Still, it’s surprising to see how agile Berserker is without his sword. Despite this, it seems that Saber and Archer already took two of Berserker’s lives away so early in the game, leaving him with only one left.
Still, it’s quite surprising to see Illya giving up on Saber and instead becoming interested in Archer. Maybe it has to do with his most powerful attack going off like an atom bomb or his past? Still, it was a nice touch to see Kirei and Gil talk to each other in a short scene. This is an obvious hint for people who already saw Fate/zero that they are the bad guys, but nobody seems to know about that yet, especially Rin. ¶
Uh…you do know Berserker has TWELVE lives right?
I realized that after I wrote the post…. Still, having only 10 lives opposed to 11 this early is a slight disadvantage.