Fate/Zero S1E7: “Dark Forest”

I doubt that this episode of Fate/Zero is going to address the Fermi Paradox, but you never know with this franchise.

Where we last left off, Professor Archie got his hotel blown up and may or may not have been killed in the blast. Kirei and Gray had an inconclusive duel that was weirdly intense and talky for reasons I don't really grasp. Gilles failed to convince Arturia that she's Joanne of Arc, and is now torturing more kids to death to convince her otherwise, because he understands how things work. Daddy Tohsaka and the powers that be running this madhouse have also decided to track down Gilles and send him back to the afterlife before he breaks the masquerade, and with Hassan's replication or summoning ability that should be doable.

Might be forgetting some plot points, it's been a while, but I think that was the gist of it. Let's go.


Open on the police searching the ruins of Archie's hotel. Speaking of masquerade-breaking, the cops find a magical reflective sphere hovering in the middle of the wreckage.

Archie did talk about having layered magical defenses around his suite, and it did seem a little odd for Diarmuid to be leaving the story so soon after having done so little. I'm guessing he enclosed his suite in some sort of pocket dimension, which was shielded from the blast and ensuing collapse by that sphere. Dude might be an asshole with the emotional intelligence of a stunted middle schooler, but he's apparently quite powerful.

Granted, his wife was also in there, and she was painted as someone you don't want to mess with either. So, with two powerful wizards working together, this sort of thing might be easier to pull off.

Every cop who touches the sphere is overcome by a compulsion to secret it away and hide it from the public. Very clever touch, Archie and Wife. These guys have got to be defense specialists, because shit is that a lot of effects they managed to cram onto that room in a short period of time.

Roll intro. I guess the point of that teaser was to show that Gray didn't actually accomplish anything with that demolition stunt. I'm not particularly invested in Gray one way or the other, so for me it's just "yay, Diarmuid is still around" and "boo, Archie is still around."

In the sanctuary church where Kirei and his priest...father...Jesus fuck Japan either learn how Catholicism works already or stop trying to write about it...are, daddy is talking about the hunt for the Caster. They've managed to ID his "master" as the culprit behind the local child killings. For now, daddy referee has ordered all other Grail War participants to stop fighting until they've dealt with this rogue Caster and his summoner.

Also, apparently he somehow "collected" unused command seals left by dead or foiled participants in previous Grail Wars who didn't get to use them all, and he somehow has the power to bestow them on current Masters. Is...this another part of the Holy Grail's system? Having a referee with these powers? Does that mean there was always a ref, even before the Vatican's supernatural black ops division were given the role? Weird. Anyway, he also does something *incredibly* stupid and says that he'll award an extra command seal to whoever takes out Gilles and Uwu.

This is idiotic of him for two reasons. First, it's going to make all the Masters compete against each other to get to the target first, thus maximizing the chaos and giving Gilles more chances to cause problems. Second, it's going to make the Servants less enthusiastic about hunting him, if they know that their "reward" will be their Master getting to make them do something they don't want to do one more time.

Of course, he might be using this as an opportunity to deliberately sabotage them. I don't think Rome wants things to go public much more than the wizards do, but if he has a plot for using this to ensure Tohsaka or Kirei wins the war then that would be worth it. So yeah, he's either doing something very stupid, or very smart.

He ends his speech by promising everyone that they can go back to killing each other as soon as they've solved their Caster problems. Any questions? Anyone who can speak human tongues got anything to add?

Then we see he's talking to an empty sanctuary.

Is this a rehearsal or something? Weird.

The next scene explains it, though I'm not sure what the point of being so mysteeeeeerious about it was. The Masters and Servants aren't allowed to enter the church themselves for the duration of the war (except for Masters who have struck out, of course), so they sent familiars to listen. I guess the "any of you who can speak in human tongues" thing was just the priest being smug at them and reminding them that they really don't get to second guess him in this.

Anyway, he then covertly informs Tohsaka over his magic phonograph thing that five familiars came to hear the announcement. This means that Archie must still be alive. No big deal though; Archie has already used one of his command seals frivolously, and with his and Diarmuid's personality conflict he's likely intendeing to use more. He'll be sure to hunt Uwu and Gilles aggressively for that prize, which should give Kirei and Tohsaka a chance to track him down and succeed where Gray failed.

That said, actually letting Archie (or anyone else for that matter) win the prize should be avoided, and of course Kirei can't do it without giving himself away. Thus, if possible, Kirei should have Hassan gather extra intel on the target and give it to Tohsaka, so that he can have Gilgamesh get to Uwu and land a killing blow before anyone else does. Gilgamesh not being a team player to begin with means he's as likely to beat Gilles and Uwu alone as he would be with support.

Cut to the house Waver took over, where a smiling, unperturbed deliveryman arrives with a package for a Mr. Alexander The Great.

This is my new favorite character in the Fate franchise. I doubt he will be unseated.

Also, he's able to see and hear Alexander. So uh, yeah. Either Alexander turned out to be another weird exception like Arturia, or it's a delivery wizard. Favorite character intensifies. My previous favorite character then excitedly puts on the T-shirt he just ordered and signed off on.

I'm guessing this is merchandise for some Japanese pop culture fad of the nineties that happened to feature the word "conquest" or "conqueror."

Waver comes over and complains about him having ordered the shirt, because he is Waver and he complains about things. This time he's whinging about Alexander wanting to make himself presentable for muggles (who apparently can see him?) like his new role model Arturia has done, and how much trouble it would be for Waver to help him finish putting an outfit together.

At the very least, Waver gives us the sentence "conquest and your pants have absolutely nothing to do with each other," so he earns a few points for that. They end up reaching the agreement that if Alexander eliminates one of the opposing spirits, Waver will buy him his stupid pants. Since the hostilities have been temporarily called off for everyone besides the Caster, that should be Alexander's target. Waver of course neglects to mention that he'll get another command seal to reign him in with if he succeeds.

Cut to the Einzberns going over a map of the city in their hotel's stateroom. They're already planning for a "second phase" of the Grail War, as apparently the rules change after the first few spirits have been eliminated, and finding areas around the city where ley-line intersections might cause the Grail itself to appear. This hasn't been talked about before, so I'll have to wait for it to be fully explained. They also discuss their plans for dealing with the Uwu and Gilles situation. Gray thinks that they have an advantage here. They know who the Caster is and that his madness has led him to fixate on Arturia, so they can probably use her to bait him into an ambush (it hasn't been mentioned if they've shared this information with anyone else. Probably not, given the way they're discussing the tactical implications).

I doubt Gray cares that much about getting an extra command seal, since Arturia has been nothing but compliant so far, but preventing someone with a Servant conflict like Archie or Waver from getting it will keep them at a disadvantage, so it's worth it.

It's not yet clear if Gray's figured out that Archie survived the hotel explosion. We do know that he knows that Kirei is still playing an active role in the battle since he attacked whatsername his gun-girlfriend, and he also spotted Hassan watching that earlier battle so he's probably put two and two together and figured out the ruse. Whether or not he suspects Tohsaka of being in on it at this point, I couldn't say.

...

Oh, speaking of Hassan, I figured out who he is and why there are so many of him! Hassan-i Sabbah was the founder of the Hassassin Order, the originator of the word "assassin." He's not especially famous for any great battles or assassinations himself, but rather for the organization he founded and the disciples he attracted who went on to kill a great many people. I suspect that his Noble Phantasm is the Hassassin Order itself; he summons ghostly versions of his old assassin understudies, making him effectively a one-spirit-army.

...

Arturia agrees that Gilles' mistaken obsession with her is an exploitable weakness, but says she'd rather not play defensive against this guy. If they wait for him to come to them, that'll give him time to commit more atrocities, which Arturia would rather prevent if she can. To his credit (and perhaps trying to make sure he and his stand remain on more or less the same page regardless of Command Seals), Gray takes Arturia's feelings into consideration and asks Iri if she thinks she can handle the magical defenses that Gilles has been putting up around Uwu's lair. She thinks she can, but opines that they should perhaps sit this one out and let someone else get a Command Seal. It's been eighteen hours since Gray and Gungirl-Whose-Name-I-Can-Never-Remember brought down the hotel, but the wound on Arturia's hand still hasn't healed. That means Diarmuid is still around, which means that Archie must have survived. In any case, Arturia won't be at full combat effectiveness until Diarmuid is vanquished, so they should try and keep her out of battle until they have a clean shot at Archie and/or Diarmuid again.

Since they're not allowed to do that until Gilles is out of the picture, they should really just use this opportunity to take five.

I suspect Iri wants Arturia to have more free time in which they can have more sex before the Grail War resumes, but regardless of ulterior motives her tactical reasoning is hard to argue with.

Gray says that that's fine. Arturia doesn't have to fight; she just needs to go there and lure Gilles into the open. At that point either someone else will take him out, or Iri will help Gray slip in passed the defenses while Gilles is distracted so he can kill Uwu and dispel Gilles without anyone having to fight him. Furthermore, Archie is certain to be one of the Masters most interested in getting another seal. If Team Einzbern is camped right there, they can kill him and/or Diarmuid when they come for Gilles, fixing Arturia's hand without ever needing her to fight with its disadvantage.

Arturia isn't happy with Gray switching from "let Gilles live long enough to murder more children" to "break the truce and backstab someone who came to kill Gilles, which may or may not ALSO cause him to live longer and murder more children."

Iri is also kind of "dude wtf" on the breaking the truce part. This is when Gray drops the bombshell on them; the Assassin is still in the game, which means that Kirei shouldn't be allowed in the sanctuary church, which means that the referee, Kirei, and probably Tohsaka are rigging the game.

He did figure out that Tohsaka is probably in on this, then. I suspected he would, given the overall fishiness of that Hassan vs. Gilgamesh "fight," but now it's confirmed.

Anyway, if the ref is dirty, then that means he's going to lose the power to actually enforce any of the rules he's calling on. Which means they can probably break the truce without mystical consequences. Bold, but sound logic. Arturia isn't happy about this at all though; it looks like Gray might end up needing an extra Command Seal after all.

...

One minor touch that I liked about this scene was that Gray is casually referring to Iri and Arturia as a unit throughout it, and to himself and Gungirl as another. He and Iri do love each other, both recognize that they're not a perfect match, and neither of them objects to the other doing their own thing.

For all that Gray is sort of an awful person and the Einzberns' homemade bride thing is fucked up, this is a surprisingly emotionally mature and healthy depiction of an open relationship. Especially for anime.

...

Gray leaves onto the...battlements? What sort of place are they staying in? I thought maybe they rented a manor house or something rather than a hotel, but no, even that doesn't really match the visuals. Anyway, Gray tells Iri that he wants to disappear. On the grail war, on her family, on everything besides her and their daughter. He asks if she thinks they can pull it off. She disagrees; not because of the practicalities, but because she knows he'd never forgive himself for not trying to get the Grail and "save the world."

I guess Gray thinks he's a hard man making hard decisions for the purpose of making the world a utopia or something.

Anyway, aside from the implicit nerves he's getting at being called out by Arturia, he's kind of terrified of Kirei. He seems to think Kirei is the one person who's likely to out-assassin him, and it seems that he's targeting him specifically, and he doesn't know how to win. Let alone protect Iri.

...okay seriously what is this place?

Did they conjure a holographic skin of Castle Einzbern to overlay the Japanese manor they rented? I'd have thought they teleported back to Europe or something, if they didn't explicitly mention their daughter being back across the world within this conversation. I really do not know.

Anyway, Iri tells him that between his murder skills Gungirl's other murder skills (Maiya! Right, her name was Maiya!), her own powerful support spells from the traditional Einzbern divination and alchemy repertoire, and Arturia likely being more powerful than Kirei's Assassin stand, she's sure they can pull it off. This thought is interrupted by some kind of magical pulse or something. Ah, I see; these are the shields they've raised around this WTF castle-thing they're staying in being penetrated. Intruder detected!

They ran back inside, and Gray and Maiya arm up while Iri grabs her crystal ball to have a look at the invader.

Well, that's one problem solved! Gilles is pounding on their door right this second, so the ethics of their various plans of attack and Arturia's dislike of them aren't going to be an issue. He just came right to them!

He also brought a bunch of children with him. Either as sacrifices to replenish his mana or whatever, or as hostages to bait Arturia out. The problem is that if it's the latter, it's working. Arturia immediately insists she's going to go out and save those kids.

Just then, Gilles senses that they're scrying on him, and looks up at the crystal ball's "camera" to address them directly. He tells them that he's come prepared this time.

He snaps the children out of their hypnotized trance, and tells them he's going to count to one hundred to give them a running start. Hide-and-seek will proceed until "Joanne de Arc" comes out to meet him. He kills one right off the bat before he starts counting, to make sure everyone knows he's serious.

Iri tells Arturia to go ahead and break this punk. She manifests her armor (condemning another poor, innocent suit to eternal damnation in hell) and heads out, where she meets Gilles just as he's found his first runaway. She tells him to unhand the kid, and he says that since she was a good girl and came out to meet him like he wanted, he will do so. He lets the kid go, the boy runs over and throws his arms around Arturia, and then a tentacle monster rips his body apart from the inside and grabs her.

Either Gilles summoned Barron inside of the kid's body somehow, or that particular kid who he just happened to have caught up to when he and Arturia found each other was just Barron in disguise. Either/or. Anyway, Arturia is wrapped up in hentai tentacles and Gilles is cackling, until she summons her heavier outer armor layer which she hadn't been wearing yet. Barron is torn apart by her expanding armor just like the kid (or "kid" as it may be) was in his entrance.

He summons a field of these starfishlike monsters between herself and him, and she starts cutting them down pretty easily, but he just keeps on summoning more. With only one good hand, she's expending more effort than she'd normally have to to kill these things, and she's afraid she might run out of juice before he does.

...

Isn't a sabre specifically a one-handed sword, though?

...

Back inside the castle or whatever the fuck it is, Iri is likewise getting nervous about how much mana the Caster seems to have. As I recall from S/N, the Servants draw on their Masters' mana, so...well, Gilles must be able to extract a lot of juice from his sacrifices, because Uwu isn't even a proper wizard. Gray, meanwhile, asks if there's any sign of other parties having tracked Gilles here.

Almost no sooner than he asked, Iri feels another, harsher, breach of the magical defenses around the grounds. Looks like Gilles has been followed here after all. This is presumably where Gray and Maiya are going to go out there and try to take out Gilles and the new arrival all at once.

Outside, Arturia is clearly tiring, and Gilles' tentacle monsters seem to be without end. It turns out that the spellbook he's clutching is his Noble Phantasm. In life, it was a gift from his fellow occultist and suspected child murder participant Francois Prelati. As a ghost, he can use it to heavily subsidize the mana cost of his demon summoning, if not waive it entirely. She tires enough that a few of the tentacles are able to grab and restrain her, and Gilles crows about how this is proof that God is weak and pathetic and that she can break free of her divinely-imposed delusions and be Joanne again.

Okay, I have to hand it to Gilles. If this actually was Joanne de'Arc, this totally would have worked. God's hold on her mind would be crushed at this point, and she'd eagerly jump his bones right then and there. It's really too bad he had this mix up, he did everything right aside from that.

Just then, Diarmuid shows up and kills some of the tentacles, letting her break free.

...

I'm kind of getting sick of the story pretending that Arturia is some particularly badass spirit, when every time she's fought she ended up accomplishing nothing and just holding the line at best until someone else showed up to bail her out.

I have a strong feeling that this wouldn't be happening if she was Arthur rather than Arturia.

...

Anyway, Diarmuid tells Gilles that he's a nerd who should go back to the locker and not get between a Chad and his Stacy. Well, what he literally says is that no one gets to kill Arturia after he was the one who weakened her, but I mean, look at how he prefaces it:

He's not very subtle about Ireland just wanting to fuck England for once.

God, I love how the wizards are having this hateful, egomaniacal battle to the death, but the Servants really just want to have a highschool romance drama.

They stand back to back and plan to overwhelm Gilles' summons and take him down. Diarmuid informs Arturia that his orders upon being sent here were to kill the Caster, so for the moment he's under no obligation to fight her.

Great music in this scene, by the way. Arturia and then Diarmuid's leitmotifs back to back, both fitting to the characters and scene and quite listenable.

While this is going on, though, Diarmuid's master Archie is walking up to the castle-type-thing himself. He pours an alchemical concoction on the ground, which promptly grows into a mercury-colored shoggoth and breaks down the door for him. Looks like he had the exact same strategy in mind as Gray; wait for someone else's Servant to be busy with Gilles, and then go kill them himself in violation of the truce.

Or...maybe it's not actually a truce violation? Rather than preserving the element of surprise, Archie stands in the foyer and loudly challenges the Einzbern mage to duel for the Grail. Maybe if you openly declare an exception to the truce and the other party agrees, you're allowed to ignore it for the purposes of that other party. Or maybe Archie figured out the same thing that Gray figured out, and is just being overconfident.

Upon not receiving an answer, he strides forward into the room, triggering a bunch of booby-trap guns and explosives that attack him from all sides. However, his quicksilver ooze pet quickly forms itself into a bubble shield around him, deflecting all of the bullets and shrapnel and leaving Archie untouched.

It looks just like the bubble he used to escape the hotel explosion (possibly along with his wife and the room itself), so this thing is damned tough. And also has a brainwashing touch, or something to that effect (or maybe the cops being hypnotized was just a spell Archie cast from inside the bubble. That would actually make sense; Waver was one of his students, and we've seen him use that type of mind control magic).

Archie scoffs at his opponents stooping to mundane technology of all things, and declares that if he's going to fight like a muggle then he'll also be crushed like one. This is not war. This is pest control.

Granted, Gray never accepted his challenge, and the trap appears to have been a non-targeted passive defense system that Archie triggered on his own. Attacking at this point might very well bring the wrath of the Grail and/or Church on his head. Well, we'll see.

Gray sends Iri out of the house while he deals with Archie and Arturia and Diarmuid handle Gilles. That seems like a really bad idea, given the support spells that she seems to know and the possibility that others may be inbound, but okay. Maiya is nowhere to be seen; I'm guessing she's already sneaking around to flank the intruder or something. Anyway, Iri runs, and Gray lets Archie break his way through the walls and floors until he reaches the stateroom. He tries shooting him again, but once again the shoggoth blocks it without being any worse for wear. Gray escapes Archie's own counterattack by accelerating himself in time and DBZ-dashing out of the room to set up an ambush somewhere else.

Archie seems to honestly be sort of relieved that his opponent is finally using magic against him. Knowing that accelerating oneself puts a lot of strain on the body and can't be kept up long, he has his shoggoth hunt Gray down. Gray seems to know how these alchemical constructs work, though, including their reliance on their sense of touch for navigation. He uses the opposite of his speedster trick to slow himself down, so that his heartbeat and breathing are below its sensory range. With the thing unable to locate him, Archie is forced to advance after it himself.

Archie blocks it yet again when Gray jumps out and gives him another spray of bullets. However, a moment later, Gray pulls out another weapon - a handgun - and looks much more sure of himself.

Either that handgun is significantly more magical than the weapon he was using before and can penetrate the shoggoth now that he's baited Archie into relying on it, or he just saw Maiya sneak up behind Archie with a +4 bazooka of Snape-bothering and he just needs to distract him for one more second. End episode.


An enjoyable watch. There were a couple of head-scratchers throughout the runtime, and the way Arturia never gets to actually achieve any goals in combat is starting to ping my low-key sexism sensor, but other than that it was a sometimes funny and sometimes exciting twenty-two minutes of entertainment. Plot-critical stuff is happening, but none of it has come to a resolution yet, so not much to comment on in terms of story and character development that I haven't already in the liveblog.

Basically, it's a Fate/Zero episode. Neither particularly strong nor weak by the show's generally high-ish standards.