The story of FSN Episode 9 follows directly from the previous episode. Emiya Shirou decides to continue participating in the Holy Grail War, and upon leaving the church, Tohsaka Rin declares that they will be in an adversarial relationship from now on.
At this moment, Archer urges Tohsaka Rin to start the battle immediately, but Tohsaka Rin refuses, claiming she must first repay the favor of him saving her from Saber.
During this process, Tohsaka Rin's behavior subtly suggests that besides repaying a favor, she seems to harbor other feelings for Emiya Shirou.
Emiya Shirou also expresses that he does not want to be enemies with Tohsaka Rin, and unconsciously utters words that sound like a confession.
However, just then, the sudden appearance of an enemy shatters the originally peaceful and happy atmosphere.
It was a petite young girl, and standing behind her was a humanoid monster with a massive body as hard as steel.
The opponent's Servant gave off a powerful sense of pressure just by standing there, making it hard to breathe. Tohsaka Rin immediately recognized the opponent's Servant as Berserker and was instantly on high alert as if facing a formidable foe.
"Good evening, Big Brother. This is our second time meeting, isn't it?"
The girl had appeared briefly in the first episode, and Emiya Shirou recognized her immediately.
At the same time, the girl introduced herself as Illyasviel von Einzbern. Tohsaka Rin reacted to this as well, clearly knowing something about it.
However, Illya had no intention of talking much with them. After a brief self-introduction, she directly ordered Berserker to kill them.
"Then go on a slaughter, Berserker! Kill them all!"
Facing the incoming enemy, Saber stepped forward without hesitation but was instantly suppressed.
Under Tohsaka Rin's command, Archer's supporting attacks followed, successfully hitting the opponent.
But a moment later, when Berserker reappeared from the smoke, he was completely unscathed, as if the attacks from the two Servants had no effect on him at all.
The massive gap in combat power instilled a sense of despair.
At the end of the manga, looking at the despairing crowd, Illya narrowed her eyes happily and said:
"Hehe, it's simply impossible to win."
"Because my Berserker is the greatest hero of Greece."
"...?! Greece's greatest hero?! Could it be—"
"That's right, he is Heracles. He is on a different level from the heroes you employ; he is the strongest and most ferocious monster!"
...
"Eh? It's actually Heracles—?!"
After finishing the end of the manga, Rin couldn't help but let out a small cry of surprise.
Originally, she was a bit confused as to why Berserker could be so powerful, being able to withstand Saber and Archer's attacks simultaneously while suppressing Saber under such conditions.
But in the end, after learning that Berserker was Heracles, such doubts instantly vanished into thin air.
After all, that was the strongest and greatest hero in greek mythology, Heracles.
Conversely, she even began to worry for the protagonist's group, wondering how they could possibly win.
"Well..."
Akira smiled and said nothing.
To talk about how Saber and Archer could defeat Berserker, one would have to mention the famous Type-Moon unsolved mystery of the Fate route—the'Seven Kills with One Sword'.
Simply put, the Noble Phantasm 『God Hand』 possessed by Heracles as Berserker gives him twelve lives, and an attack that has been received once will not work a second time.
In other words, according to the setting, to defeat Heracles, one must kill him twelve times using different methods.
However, in the original Fate route, Emiya Shirou projected Caliburn and, joining forces with Saber, wiped out seven of Heracles' lives in one breath, defeating the opponent in one go.
But why could the Caliburn projected by Emiya Shirou eliminate seven of Heracles' lives at once?
Regarding this, Nasu Kinoko stated:
He didn't know either.
If an explanation must be given, one can only say that an immensely powerful attack can consume several of Heracles' lives at once.
Or that the joint attack of Emiya Shirou and Saber was imbued with the mysterious power of so-called 'Infinite Love'.
But there's an even simpler explanation: plot armor.
Regardless, fortunately, he didn't have to consider this issue because his arrangement for Uncle B mainly referenced the UBW route, including this battle.
Although it referenced the UBW route, he made some minor adjustments to the entire subsequent battle by combining the differences between the original version and the anime version.
For example, Illya's speech in this episode.
In the original, the opponent only self-disclosed the Servant's True Name in the first playthrough's Fate route, but it wasn't mentioned in the second playthrough's UBW route. Naturally, his manga version needed to include it.
Speaking of which, similar to Rin's reaction, there was quite a bit of discussion about this episode on the online forums—
"Heracles appeared directly? This early in the story?"
"This is Heracles we're talking about; surely he won't be defeated this early, right?"
"Defeated? Right now, I can't see how the protagonist's group is going to win."
"I think Uncle B should be a late-game BOSS. Right now, he's probably just being brought out by Mochizuki-sensei for a quick appearance."
"Agreed. By the way, what is 'Uncle B'?"
"Typing out either Berserker or Heracles is too much trouble, so I just abbreviated it a bit, hehe."
"But I want to ask, why is Uncle B drawn so ugly?"
"Ugly? I think he's quite cool. After all, he's a Berserker, so of course he has to be a bit scary."
"I only know that Illya is truly cute. I've got a new waifu, hehe!"
"Wow, a lolicon! Disgusting."
"Clarification: I'm not a lolicon; it's just that the person I like happens to be a loli."
"Tsk tsk tsk, otakus are really gross."
"+1"
"By the way, Illya is my wife."
"?"
...
...
Three days later, the assistants returned to work on FSN, so Rin took a temporary break.
At this time, the three were surprised to find that the drawing progress of 'Weathering with You' seemed to have advanced by a large margin.
Could it be that Mochizuki-sensei's drawing speed has increased again?!
Akira explained with a smile:
"I just found a temporary assistant to help out."
"I see."
The three were somewhat enlightened but also a bit puzzled. Were such short-term temporary assistants that easy to find?
Additionally, the three were unaware of the matter regarding 『Tsukirin』 appearing on a music variety show.
Except for Shota, the other two were not the target audience for music variety shows, and Shota, who was the only potential viewer, didn't have a TV in his rented room.
Therefore, he didn't tell them about the fact that '『Tsukirin』 is going to be on the show' to avoid causing unnecessary trouble.
And there were many more people like them.
Even if 『Tsukirin』 and Rin had started to become popular in the music industry, in another field and in the eyes of the vast majority of people in reality, they were still just insignificant existences.
This feeling was actually quite strange.
The next day, Hisashi's notification call arrived as scheduled—
"This time, the shōsei ranking is 1st place. Congratulations, Mochizuki-sensei!"