Archer

Archer is the Servant of Rin Tōsaka, and he serves as the servant protagonist of the Unlimited Blade Works route, but he also serves an antagonistic role for part of the route. He is sarcastic and cynical, considering Shirō's "wanting to save everyone" mentality as naïve and impossible. Archer's real identity is Shirō Emiya from one of the possible future worlds. He is the winner of the Fifth Holy Grail War in his world. Later, Archer made a pact with the world to gain more power to pursue his goal of becoming "the ally of justice," indiscriminately killing all "evil" people regardless of their circumstances or what may result from their deaths. He was eventually framed for starting a war by an unknown group and executed by the fearful public. Unlike the other Servants, Archer is a Counter Guardian, a supernatural being who resides outside time and space. The Counter Guardians have one mission; to stop any event that would cause humanity's extinction by killing everyone involved. This life of endless killing drove Archer mad with grief, and he sought to end his eternal existence and return to nothingness. The jewel Archer owns is the actual catalyst used for his summoning rather than the one Rin still has at the time of his summoning. He has taken the basics of magic to their absolute maximum to combat-ready, creating a small but reliable skillset for himself. Though Projection is normally ineffective at creating durable or powerful artifacts, Archer's unique approach to this craft enables him to materialize enormously powerful and accurate copies of the images recorded in his mind. All of his Projection abilities come from his Reality Marble, Unlimited Blade Works: Infinite Creation of Swords, which manifests itself instead as a desert littered with swords with monolithic black gears rotating in the smog-filled sky above. In the Fate route, he is defeated by Berserker while buying time for Rin, Shirō, and Saber to escape. In the Unlimited Blade Works route, after Shirō refuses to abandon the ideal to save everyone, Archer seeks to kill Shirō to prevent him from becoming like himself and ending his own existence as a Counter Guardian. Shirō defeats him later but survives long enough to deliver the finishing blow to Gilgamesh and save Rin and Shinji from the Grail's birth canal. In the "Heaven's Feel" route, Shirō chooses to save Sakura over society at large, effectively abandoning his "allies of justice" idealism. Archer's dream is fulfilled, and he continues his mission to protect Shirō and his friends. Later, Archer is mortally wounded in an engagement against True Assassin, Saber Alter, and The Shadow. He survives long enough to have Kirei Kotomine surgically graft his left arm onto Shirō, who lost his arm in that same battle.