3 The End Of The Training Arc!

(3rd Person Pov)

Deep within the confines of the space that Tanzo was training in, sounds of steel clashing against steel, and arrows being fired could be heard as Tanzo and Archer Emiya continued their daily sparring.

(Clang!) (Clang!) (Woosh!) (Boom!)

Tanzo dodged several hundred arrows, and drew his bow firing a single arrow that multiplied into more than a dozen of them. All of which Archer Emiya shot down and countered.

"Tsk. Damn you Archer! Just you wait I'll beat the shit out of you!"

Tanzo spoke as he projected a red Demonic spear wielded by the hound of Ulster. The Gáe Bolg. He deflected the many arrows falling onto him from the sky.

(Clang) (Clang) (Clang) (Boom) 

Tanzo proceeded to summon several thousand regular sword's and blasted them at Archer causing him to click his tongue in annoyance as he muttered. 

"Damn that brat and his stupidly good magic circuits and Od output."

Archer then raised his hand into the air projecting his most powerful shield.

"Rho Aias!"

Above him a beautiful flower bloomed into existence and seven layers of shields protected him from the rain of projectiles as Tanzo shot several hundred more swords towards Archer who was protecting himself with the Shield of Ajax. Emiya projected the Around Round Shield to protect him. Tanzo looked surprised as he traced both shield's before he exclaimed in surprise. 

"Is that the shielders class girl shield?! Your FGO Emiya?!" 

Archer who had survived both onslaught of attacks dismissed both shields as he looked confused at Tanzo's words.

"FGO Emiya?"

Tanzo realised that Archer didn't know what fgo stands for, so he spoke. 

"The Grand Order time line of course! The one where you were summoned into Chaldea where the masters Summon servants even actual God's to help protect humanity. Even though the master of Chaldea technically has spilled more blood than even most evil servants."

Archer took a deep breath as he muttered to himself. 

"Deep breaths, deep breaths. You'll interrogate him soon enough, for now finish your end of the contract. Look kid, I'm not sure how or where you got so much information. But just keep your mouth shut till the training is over. Everytime you speak, the more questions I have. And I'm trying my damned hardest not to just interrogate you right here and now. So until we're done with this training, don't go speaking anything else about my life."

Tanzo nodded his head in understanding. As he replied sheepishly. 

"My bad. I'll keep my mouth shut from now on."

Archer took advantage of Tanzo's lapse in judgement to project dozens of chains capturing Tanzo, before grabbing one of the many tens of thousands of blades that was dropped onto him and pointed at the disbeliefed Tanzo's neck as he smirked and spoke.

"My win again brat."

Tanzo looked on disbeliefed at the way he lost. He complained to the bowman in red.

"Oi! That's foul play! You took advantage of me apologising to capture me! That's not fair!"

The red Archer snorted on amusement as he spoke. 

"I'm trying to teach you how to survive, not to fight like a true warrior. There's a difference between the two you know? One fights to survive using any means no matter how unnoble it is. They'd throw dirt in your eye's, aim to slit your throat or your eye's, kick you in the genitals. Anything to assure survival. A warrior on the other hand, fights fairly. They will challenge their opponents to a one on one duel, and never use dirty tricks to beat their foe. Just their strength and skills. Now tell me, of the two opponents, who is most likely to win?"

Tanzo replied firmly. 

Tanzo: "It depends on who the more experienced one of the two are."

Archer raised an eyebrow at Tanzo's reply, before dismissing the chains holding Tanzo. Only to project the twin married swords Kanshou and Bakuya blocking Tanzo's attack as he smirked and spoke. 

"Oh? Raring for another beat down?"

Tanzo became furious ashe snarled. 

"Just you wait, I'll beat you up!"

Archer grunted as Tanzo struck his abdomen with a knee strike, before pushing Emiya's arms away from each other and sending a roundhouse kick which archer ducked and sent a knee strike of his own striking Tanzo in his abdomen causing him to cough out some spit. Archer was forced to jump away from Tanzo as a hail of swords came crashing down on his location causing him to click his tounge in annoyance.

Over the next several months, Tanzo and Archer's spar continued, and Tanzo felt he was close to collapsing from the mental exhaustion. So, he gave Archer a shit eating grin that caused the bowman to feel a pit forming in his stomach as he heard Tanzo uttered. 

"Trace On!"

His circuits began overheating as high above the sky, over ten thousand blades were projected. And if that wasn't bad enough, Archer broke into cold sweat as he saw how cracks began littering every blade, as he sensed a ridiculously large quantity of Od being poured into the ten thousand blades turning them into broken projections. Archer mentally cursed the boy.

'This lunatic! I've got no choice but to deploy my Reality Marble if I want any chances of making out of this onslaught alive.'

And so Archer began chanting. 

"I am the bone of my sword. Steel is my body, and fire is my blood."

And then it rained on him ten thousand broken projections. He raised his hand and projected his most powerful shield.

"Rho Aias!"

Once more a beautiful flower with seven petals bloomed above him taking the brunt of the broken projections as he grunted and continued chanting his aria.

"Unknown To Death, Nor Known To Life."

Two of the Seven petals were broken as he finished. 

"So as I pray. I call forth Unlimited Blade Work's!"

In an instant, Arher's Reality Marble immediately took over Tanzo's own reality marble which he isn't aware of at the moment. As he summoned swords after sword's to ease the burden of facing ten thousand broken projections. Meanwhile, Tanzo looked on in awe at seemingly endless number of weapons. Sword's, shields, spears, daggers, anything and everything you could imagine existed and we're copied deep into his reality marble. 

The his eyes made contact with the divine constructs that existed in UBW. Such as the spear & Armour of Karna, Arjuna's bow, Surtr's blade Laevatin, and so so many more. All of which he immediately traced and added to his own collection. And at this moment to Tanzo, Archer's reality marble was like a treasure trove full of weapons for him to steal. But alas, mental exhaustion took him away before he could continue copying Archer's copyrighted weapons.

Archer breathed a sigh of relief and exhaustion as he fell to the ground with his reality marble fading away due to having no mana to continue keeping it active. Archer got up from the ground before he froze as before him stood thousands upon thousands of weapons that once belonged in his own reality marble.

"Should have seen this coming. Oh well, I'll get back at the kid for this one day. But still, the longer we fight the more I'm beginning to believe I might have to start using that skill gifted to me as part of our contract."

Archer released a satisfied groan as he felt his physical body, and his mind as well as all his spent Od returning to peak performance as he waited for Tanzo to awaken.

And that was how Tanzo's second year of training went. For his third year, Tanzo focused more on mana control, and he even learnt that he had his own spirit form as well shocking Archer deeply. 

Archer: 'How does he have a spirit form if he's still very much alive? What kind of unfairness is this?! Well, I don't exactly think it's unfair considering that skill I've been granted.'

After training his mana control, Tanzo would proceed to do his daily exercises, then his meditation, then onto sparring against Archer until he eventually passes out either from lack of mana, or mental exhaustion.

The good news was that Tanzo felt himself constantly close to beating Archer. If not for the fact that he still had a long way to go in not expanding alot of mana projecting things. He tended to overuse alot of mana projecting weapons due to his ridiculous quantity, quality, and output of Od. The and news was that he'd never come to learn that Archer held a skill that would cause Tanzo no ends of headache's and losses.

Also, Tanzo finally learned that the space he was training in was apparently his own reality marble. Which excited Tanzo greatly and caused alot more headaches for Archer as he was constantly fighting Tanzo on his own domain. And Tanzo was merciless. It was because of this that Archer began using the skill gifted to him as part of his contract.

This skill made him stronger against Tanzo, so he would never lose. When he's being attacked by hundreds of Gae Bolgs, and he activates this ability, he's granted infinite magical energy, with infinite magical output, and his body is capable of handling this strain of releasing so much magical energy to allow him the edge over Tanzo.

Making him able to surpass the boy in projection. But he rarely used this skill, and only used it when he's cornered to not grow over reliant on it.

Tanzo's remaining seven years of training involved him getting his butt whooped, and beginning to rarely pass out from mental exhaustion. The longest time the two have sparred against each other is a month of nonstop combat.

Because of not wanting to rely too much on his skill to help him beat Tanzo, he's had to deploy UBW alot more often allowing Tanzo to fill his own armory. Tanzo was also taught some other basic magecraft that Archer could still remember. Such as rune craft, hypnosis, and making bounded field's. But they were all just the basics of basics as Archer never studied them properly. 

And so Tanzo spent every single day training and mastering his physical and magical abilities, learning to make basic bounded fields, and even sparring with each other with all Kinds of weapon's and techniques from various heroes. And then in the blink of an eye, ten years came to pass. 

-(Flashback End.)

Tanzo: "How time flies when your finally enjoying yourself."

Archer: "Indeed. And honestly, I dare say if you were a servant you'd probably match Berserker Heracles in terms of physical parameters, with a mana stat surpassing most casters."

Tanzo chuckled as he spoke. 

Tanzo: "Honestly, even with all that's happend I'm glad I got to train with you." 

Archer: "Is that so?" 

Tanzo: "Absolutely! You were definetly an asshole, and a sadist. But you prioritised making sure I got proper training. If there's one thing I'm saddened about, is just how I never had to eat, drink, or even take a shit. It just felt so off you know?" 

Archer: "Maybe you actually died coming into your reality marble and became a servant. That might explain why your able to enter spirit form."

Tanzo: "Haha. Now then, you have questions and I have answers. Go ahead and ask me them."

Archer: "I'm impressed you still remembered."

Tanzo: "So what do you want to ask?" 

Archer: "How do you know so much about myself and the other versions of myself?" 

Tanzo: "It's because your the protagonist to a popular visual novel called fate stay night. That vn evolved to become popular enough to get it's own anime. There is too many version's of said anime, but there was like three different anime based on the events of the Saber route which is where you fell for saber. The Rin Tohsaka route where you fell for her, and the Sakura Matou route where you fell for Sakura. Then there's also Fate Grand Order. A gacha game full of various characters from mythology summoned to help the protagonist save humanity. And you are one of the many servants summonable. Also, it's a gacha game."

Archer froze as he processed all this information. So all his life was based off a visual novel that someone made? His becoming a counter guardian, his suffering, his personality, all was made for some sort of visual novel?! 

Archer was angry and furious. But then, he realised it was pointless. So he sighed tiredly. For the first time ever, he feels like this Reality Marbles ability to help mental exhaustion failing him as he spoke. 

Archer: "So my entire life is just a story for others enjoyment huh?" 

Tanzo: "Your not as angry as I imagined."

Archer: "There's no point getting angry over something I can't control. At the end of the day, this isn't even the real me. This is just another fragment of my soul. And then learning that my entire life story was all made by some author. It's a pointless thing to get angry over. So, how popular am I as a character in this anime?"

Tanzo: "Scarily popular. But many people love meeming you though. There's even an international Shirou day amongst the fandom."

Archer and Tanzo would spend a long time chatting about everything Tanzo knew. And to say that he become horrified when he learned of the existence of doujins of himself sleeping with his younger self made Archer shudder in dread.

He praid that Tanzo's words about how anything and everything related to this Fate series being canon is false. He never ever wants to know that there was a version of himself that slept with his younger self! 

However, their conversation was cut short by Archer beginning to fade away. 

Archer: "Ah. It seems like my times up huh?" 

Tanzo: "Yeah... Hey Archer."

Archer: "Call me Emiya."

Tanzo: "Emiya huh? I really don't want this to be our last goodbye you know."

Archer: "Sadly this is our last goodbye. There's nothing you can do about that."

 Tanzo bowed his head.

Tanzo: "Thank you so much for training me! Even on the days when we kept bickering with one another I always enjoyed them! So Emiya Shirou thank you for being someone I could talk to and rely on these past 10 years! I hope we can meet again! And if we ever do, I will finally defeat you! That is my promise to you!"

Tanzo said all this with tears in his eyes and a massive smile. Emiya Shirou remained silent when he saw Tanzo bow to him, and after hearing his words, Emiya simply smiled and replied

Emiya: "Don't start getting sentimental kid, otherwise I might grow a heart and stop trying to attack you at every opportunity I have. But, I will admit these past 10 years were some of the best moments of my life. Until we meet again kid!"

Saying so Emiya dissappeard into light particles before Tanzo's eye's. Standing up straight, Tanzo wiped his eyes with his sleeve before he also vanished into motes of light and reappeared back into his house.

-(Scene end!)-

(An: "Finally! Also this link I'll provide is my answer about the whole divine construct bs in UBW todaloo~")

https://www.reddit.com/r/fatestaynight/comments/s0mjxq/what_it_looks_like_when_you_try_to_figure_out_if/