Chapter Text
Chapter 1
Arrows of Light maketh an Archer not.
Orario, The City of Adventurers, Home to the Dungeon and Countless Legends. Great people and lunatics from all over the world gather in this one place for both fame and fortune, calling it the center of the World wouldn't be an exaggeration, and—
"HROUGH!"
"GWAH!"
it's also the place where the young and woefully unprepared get skill checked so hard that if there were a monument honoring failure, it would make even the Gods lose faith in humanity.
…
I'm sorry, where was I?
Ah, right—
The young and woefully unprepared Bell Cranel, Level One, maidenless, and seconds away from becoming an educational example for future adventurers who ignore their guild advisors.
"HII!" Bell shrieked as he dodged another overhead swing that nearly turned him into wall decoration.
The game of cat and mouse..or perhaps bull and rabbit in this case, went on for a couple more minutes before predictably—
"GWUH!"
The rabbit tripped and fell.
Now, normally, this would be the part where a certain sword princess with the emotional range of white paint on an already white wall swoops in to save the day.
This would, of course, set off roughly twenty-something volumes of "heroics" and "romance," all triggered by the hanging bridge effect and an obscene amount of luck that would put Kazuma Satou himself to shame, while also somehow taking place just within a year.
This is..not that story.
CLINK. THUMP.
At the same moment Bell's face met the ground, a small, golden object rolled out of his jacket — a goblet, shining faintly with an almost holy light.
A holy and pathetically small goblet.
The boy's mind flashed back to when he had received this 'gift'..it was right before he had left his village, on the way to the nearest city, he had encountered an man in a cave, tall, aged and with striking red eyes.
'Wait my boy, it's dangerous to go out alone. Take this, this is a ancient magical artefact which is capable of performing miracles..or something like that"
Bell, being both polite and catastrophically naïve, had accepted it without question.
Now, whether Bell still believed in the old man's words was inconsequential—because in about two seconds, his head was going to be turned into paste if he didn't.
So, in the same way a drowning man grabs at straws, Bell grabbed the tiny goblet and prayed with all the desperation in his soul.
"Someone! Save me!"
…And indeed, his prayers were answered.
Bell squeezed his eyes shut, bracing for the final blow—
—but when he opened them, he saw strands of orange cutting through the darkness.
The massive club that was supposed to crush him and it's owner now miles away from both him and his saviour.
Wait…
Was that a guitar riff?
In a medieval fantasy world?
(Play: Bleach OST – "Number One-Bankai")
A long shadow fell over Bell as his orange-haired savior rose to his feet.
"Stay here."
Two simple words—calm and firm.
And yet Bell couldn't bring himself to move.
For a moment he even forgot how to breathe.
For a long moment, all he could do was stare up at the man before him.
Long orange hair cascaded down his back, a black coat split into three behind him where his legs began, his arms and hands were covered in black sleeves, with white stripes and fur adorning his left and blue patterns his right.
The first thought that crossed Bell's mind when his mind finally processed the man before him was..this person definitely does not belong in this world.
Then the man raised his right arm.
Blue energy crackled and coalesced around his hand, taking form—until a bow, sleek and jagged and humming with power, materialized out of thin air.
He stared at it for a second.
"…The hell is this?"
Meanwhile, the Minotaur—having suddenly lost its prey—raged and finally noticed the man.
The distance vanished in an instant. The beast's horns lowered, aiming straight for his chest.
WHAMFH!*
Bell froze, his mouth hanging open.
"Forget it…" the man muttered, voice heavy with irritation.
The orange-haired stranger had stopped the Minotaur's full-force charge—with his other hand.
He literally had the bull by the horns.
"Let's do it this way.."
SHWOOM!*
A sharp, rising whine tore through the cavern—the sound of air being sucked into a void.
The light built in his palm, searing white and blinding.
WHHHOOOOMMM!*
And in the next instant, the Minotaur's upper half simply ceased to exist, erased in a hollow flash of white.
"What the—", came the unheard cry of a pitiful warewolf who narrowly dodged the blast of the Minotaur Slayer 9000. His tail however, would be remembered a couple of inches shorter later.
This event was an early indicator of their most illustrious relationship going forward.
(Ost End)
Bell's mouth was still hanging open.
He would've worried about flies getting in—if they weren't all probably vaporized alongside the Minotaur.
Far be it from Bell to pity a monster that had been trying to waste him five minutes ago, but… well, he did.
In the first place, Was that kind of power even necessary!?
This was still the Lower Floors!
The walls were still scorching red!
"Hey kid!", the man then turned, and Bell froze.
Crap..did he say all that out loud?
"Were you the one who summoned me here? Are you okay?"
Bell almost sighed in relief and tried to straighten up."Y-Yes, si—huh?"
His legs gave out instantly. The world tilted, and he would've faceplanted if not for the man catching him by the jacket at the last moment.
"…So this is what it meant by a Reiryoku Connection," the man muttered, half to himself.
"S-Sorry! I don't know why but—"
"Get a hold of yourself", the man scolded,"Can you stand?"
"Yes sir..I think..", the boy somehow managed to get to his feet.
"Stop it with the 'sir' nonsense, I'm not that much older than you", the man said,"..or so I think"
Heroic Spirit ages were weird.
Even setting aside the ultra-exceptional cases—like a certain King of Knights who technically hit her mid-thirties yet still looked like she'd just graduated from knight school thanks to her own Noble Phantasm—most Servants were summoned at the point in life that best represented their prime.
They carried the memories of their entire lives, of course, but those recollections often felt distant—like someone else's dreams borrowed for context.
In Archer's case, his so-called "prime" picked by the Grail was sixteen—the same age where he got roped into his second world-ending conflict for reasons that still made no sense to him.
That said, he hadn't actually died in the conventional sense, which made his record on the Throne yet incomplete.
Somewhere back in his original world, the 'real' version of him was still running around, probably complaining about something.
So while this Archer looked sixteen, the truth was that the Grail had summoned a 'snapshot' still uploading in the proverbial Heroic Cloud.
Which put his actual mental age at anywhere between sixteen, and however old the 'real him' happened to be now.
Archer wished he could say that realising that he was a copy of a still recording copy of a living person was the most existentially horrifying thing he had ever experienced but, in reality..it was only ranked somewhere around the second.
Number one was getting to know the fact that his sword was actually—
"Then, what do I call you? Sir—I mean.."
Archer suddenly turned back, his eyes tracing something beyond the red cavern.
"Sir..?"
"I'm sorry, but it seems like we would have to carry out this conversation later", he said simply.
GRRR*
Minotaurs..Dozens of them.
Archer raised his left arm once again.
SHWOOM!*
Bell's eyes widened. "A-Again!?"
He tried to step back..that proved to be a mistake.
Strength left his body yet again.
THUD*
Archer glanced back..and sighed.
The white orb of annihilation disappeared into thin air.
He raised the weapon in his right arm..
"Right..how did four eyes do this again?"
He fiddled around with it for a moment, before he had the idea to pinch the air..
SHWAA*
"Right, got it", he said as he stretched the string of blue light.
..and released!
PTOOM!*
It was truly a feat of marvellous accuracy.
"Just where is all of this coming from!?" came the familiar cry of the same Werewolf—whose jacket was now pinned between an arrow and a rock.
I mean, really, the sheer skill it would take to hit not one, not two—but zero of the very large, very angry Minotaurs, and instead nail the tacky jacket of a stripper Werewolf that no normal human could even see from this distance.
It was like Arjuna hitting the eye of the bird in the middle of the forest.
Except, you know..Archer hadn't intended it in the slightest.
And so..Archer proved without a shadow of a doubt, that The Archer Class is in fact NOT made up of Archers.
Silence reigned in the cavern, not even the Minotaur seemed to know what to do.
"Ahem", Archer coughed in his hand, embarrassed,"..Let's try this again"
'Stop it. This time you will really kill him'—Bell's thought stabbing the air like a prayer and a complaint all at once.
"How hard can this be?"
"OW!"
"Third time's the charm!"
"Motherfucker!"
"What did that guy say the Arrow was called?..Helig-Helig something!"
"Just kill me already!"
Just what is this insane ceremony of light and pain? Did I die and reach Tarturus?—Bell thought as he saw his saviour getting more and more frustrated.
"Screw this! We are leaving!", Archer threw his arms up and picked up his small master with one arm, and disappeared in a flash.
Later, The Sword Princess, Ais Wallenstein, came across the charred, smoking, and—most importantly—completely naked form of a certain grey-haired warewolf sprawled in the middle of the corridor.
The only words that left his mouth as she approached were weak, pitiful, and full of the quiet despair of a man who had just experienced something beyond mortal comprehension—
"—I saw the light..it had terrible aim.."
Servant Corner!
Class-Archer
Master-Bell Cranel
Alignment-Chaotic Good
True Name-Ichigo Kurosaki
Source-Bleach
Strength-B+
Endurance-A
Agility-B+
Mana-B+
Luck-C
Noble Phantasm-A++
Class Skills
Magic Resistance (A)
Completely nullifies all Orarian magic below divine rank. Even Riveria's Floor Annihilation Spells would just be "warm."
Independent Action (B)
Aka. the only reason the Rabbit is still alive right now. Huh..all those times of getting split up before the start of the next big conflict actually came in handy.
Personal Skills
Instinct (A+)
A combat sense so honed it borders on time manipulation. If there's danger nearby, Ichigo's body moves before his brain can even argue.
Clairvoyance (B+)
Heightened spiritual senses grant him limited future sight, believed to be an "inheritance" of the Quincy King.
Quincy's Craft (C)
The theoretical ability to shape reishi into ranged weapons and projectiles. In practice? His form is atrocious, his aim questionable, and at least one Werewolf ends up hospitalized every attempt.
Spiritual Pressure (A)
Trancendent (EX)
Noble Phantasm
Getsuga Cero
Rank: A++ Type: Anti-Fortress
Range: Long (theoretically)
A fusion of Quincy arrowcraft and Hollow destruction — a single concentrated arrow of spiritual energy that unites every fragment of Ichigo's power.
It's beautiful. It's terrifying.
It's also, unfortunately, barely controllable, because Ichigo does not actually know how to shoot a bow.
….
Bio
Bond 1
A soul born of Death God, Quincy, and Hollow. The Hero of the Winter War and the Thousand-Year Blood War. A being second only to the Soul King in terms of raw power.
Why is he an Archer you ask? The Practical Answer is that summoning such a Heroic Spirit in any other class would be the equivalent of summoning the Nuclear Bomb and any normal Master would die soon after from either the shear Prana Cost or Ichigo's own Spiritual Pressure.
The Real Answer is..Ichigo simply heard his master's cry for help and jumped into the first vessel he could find, skipping the Grail's exposition like a Gamer mashing A.