Archer (Fate/stay night)

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 Alignment | True Neutral

**Archer**, also known by his true name **Shirou Emiya**, is an anti-hero from the visual novel Fate/stay night, developed by Type-Moon.

## Backstory

Archer is Shirou Emiya, a child who was saved from a fire by a magus assassin named Kiritsugu Emiya, though his parents were killed in the inferno and Kiritsugu adopted him. His guilt from being the only survivor of the fire, along with Kiritsugu's dreams of being a hero, led to Shirou wanting to become a hero of justice so he could save everyone in danger, even after Kiritsugu's death. After entering and winning the Fifth Holy Grail War, seven mages each summoned a spirit from the past to fight for them in a tournament for the Holy Grail, which granted the winner one wish. Shirou made a contract with the world to become a Heroic Spirit after his death so he could be summoned to protect and save others. However, Emiya eventually found out that his job mostly consisted of cleaning up humanity's messes, giving him a jaded and nihilistic world view.

However, back in the time of the Fifth Holy Grail War, a magus named Rin Tohsaka accidentally summoned Emiya as an Archer-class Servant. Once he saw that Shirou was in this timeline, Archer decided to try and either change Shirou's philosophy or kill him to avoid becoming a Guardian and living the life of violence and suffering he'd brought on himself.

## Powers & Abilities

* **Projection and Tracing:** Archer's signature magical abilities. Projection lets him materialize objects from his mind, and Tracing creates a copy of anything Archer's seen. Combining these two powers lets Archer conjure exact replicas of any weapon he's seen, which while slightly inferior to the original, have all the powers of their original counterparts. While wielding a Traced weapon, Archer gains all the skill and experience of the weapon's original wielder.

* **Reinforcement:** A magic power that enhances qualities of an object, such as toughness, sharpness, etc. Archer usually uses it to form his summoned weapons into arrows, but he can use it on himself to boost his physical abilities and senses.

* **Broken Phantasm:** By charging mana into a weapon, Archer can transform it into a destructive projectile that violently explodes when it hits something.

* **Clairvoyance:** Enhances Archer's eyesight for long-ranged sniping. Lets him count the individual tiles on a bridge while standing on top of a very tall bridge.

* **Independent Action:** Lets Archer stay active for two days without a Master providing him with mana.
* **Unlimited Blade Works: Infinite Creation of Swords:** Archer's Reality Marble, a world created in his mind, that's the source of his power and stores every weapon he's ever seen. Archer can bring Unlimited Blade Works into the real world, transporting himself and everyone around him into it. While inside Unlimited Blade Works, Archer can create countless copies of every weapon he's seen, which he can telekinetically control and fire as projectiles.

## Equipment

* **Kanshou and Bakuya:** Archer's signature weapons, a pair of dual swords that represent Yin and Yang. They cost little mana to project, making them ideal weapons for Archer, and if one is thrown while the other is held, the thrown sword will return to Archer's hand like a boomerang.
* **Bow:** Used by Archer to fire arrows and Broken Phantasms.
* **Caladbolg:** A demonic spiral sword wielded by an Irish hero. Archer usually modifies it into an arrow and fires it as a Broken Phantasm, which can decimate a whole cemetery in one shot.
* **Hrunting:** The sword used by the English hero Beowulf. When fired as a Broken Phantasm, it turns into a hypersonic magical bullet that homes in on its target.
* **Rho Aias:** A seven-layered energy shield used by the hero Aias. When all seven layers are active, it can block city-destroying attacks.
* **Durandal:** An indestructible holy sword.
* **Excalibur Image:** A copy of King Artoria Pendragon's magic sword. It only has a fraction of Excalibur's power, but it can turn Archer's mana into holy light for enhanced strikes and fire waves of golden light powerful enough to wipe out armies.

## Feats

### Strength

* Kicked Shirou hard enough to send him flying five meters.
* Matched blows from Lancer.
* Can pulverize concrete with the shockwaves from his strikes.
* Threw Lancer through a wall.
* Deflected Caster's energy blasts.

### Speed

* Traded a hundred blows with Lancer in an instant.
* Moves faster than the eye can track.
* The instant before an attack hit him, kicked Shirou away and threw his swords at someone high up in the air.
* Blocked attacks so fast that the afterimages were blurred.

### Durability

* Survived being stabbed with several swords.
* Immune to conventional weaponry.

### Skill

* Can snipe people from four kilometers away.
* Gains the skill of anyone who's weapon he copies.
* Fought Lancer to a standstill.
* Took out six of Berserker's twelve lives.
* Landed the killing blow on Gilgamesh.

## Weaknesses

* Physically weaker than most Servants.
* Mana Consumption.
* Unable to project divine Noble Phantasms, or he could die.
* Low Magic Resistance.
* Unlimited Blade Works taxes his body and mind.

## Fun Facts

* The reason why Archer has white hair is because of the strain of using Projection too much.