Part 52: Hunter of the Red Plains - Nameless - Part 1

Hunter of the Red Plains - Nameless 1



Welcome to our first Servant Side Story. By popular vote, Nero's first lieutenant Nameless will be our first of many.





Yeah, I was using one of his DLC costumes to level grind a bit. So, what's Nameless' story? After all, unlike everyone else in the game, he is neither a famous mythological or historical figure, so he seems a bit out of place no matter where he goes. That's because unlike everyone else in this game, Nameless cannot be properly called Heroic Spirit. He is instead what's known in this universe as a Counter Guardian, but we'll get back to that.

The closest Nameless has to a True Name is Emiya Shirou, the protagonist of Fate/stay night and hollow ataraxia. Shirou was a relatively ordinary magus who specialized in projection magic, the ability to conjure weapons (almost always swords, as Shirou's "root" as a magus is the ability to create swords) and items within his magical ability. However, Nameless comes from a Shirou that's never been seen, outside of a short scene in the anime adaptation of Unlimited Blade Works. The Shirou of that particular timeline won the 5th Holy Grail War of his timeline along with his Servant Saber (Artoria Pendragon, which is how Nameless knows of Artoria in the prologue of FSN, but Artoria doesn't know him). Upon winning his Holy Grail War, Shirou made a wish to the manifested Holy Grail, to receive the power to become, in his words, a Hero of Justice. It's around this point that his skin turns brown and his hair turned white, from extensive use of projection magic.

As a Hero of Justice, he dedicated his power to helping the most number of people possible, even if that meant killing others, something he saw as an inevitability. In his mindset, not everyone could be saved, or even should be. As more problems came up, more people were killed by his hands. At the end of his road, only oblivion awaited, having been turned into a convenient enemy during some conflict he was involved in. However, instead of that being the end, he obtained Heroic Spirit-like status from a pact with the world, or in other words, the Counter Force (the same unconscious force that created Excalibur as a countermeasure to Sephyr). The Counter Force gave him the chance to continue his fight, and he accepted. As a Counter Guardian, he is dispatched to timelines and situations that threaten humanity's future, and his job is to set things right. In other words, an endless fight. The type of guy who always shows up where he's needed.

So why doesn't he identify himself properly? Part of the reason is he's not always 100% familiar with his own story, part of the reason is he generally sees no reason to. The name Emiya Shirou means nothing to anyone but himself, and even then, the Shirou we're familiar with rejects Nameless' utilitarian philosophy and doesn't accept him, a sentiment Nameless shares. So, there's no reason for names with him. In spite of his own nihilistic tendencies, however, Nameless does retain Shirou's somewhat childish philosophy of wanting to be a hero to everyone. If you'll permit, it's just he's seen enough shit to be generally pessimistic about his chances of actually doing so, having seen what the interests of justice demand of him.

So that's Nameless' story. I'll talk a bit more about his personal history in this franchise before the start of the next stage. One more thing I want to talk about before we start is his current costume. The name of this costume is "Slash and Connect", which is a reference you definitely wouldn't get if you weren't familiar with the name Emiya Kiritsugu, Shirou's adopted father. Kiritsugu's speciality as a Magus Killer was oriented around his Origin Bullets, which were bullets created from his ribs and designed to kill powerful magi. The concept behind those bullets is, upon contact, the bullets would slash apart the magus' Magic Circuits and retie them. Doing so makes these circuits weaker and embeds Kiritsugu's power in them. When a magus tries using magic again, their own circuits tear their body apart from the inside. As for the name itself, the kanji in Kiritsugu's name reads "Slash" and "Connect". This costume is Kiritsugu's working outfit in Fate/zero, a black suit / duster.



Everyone gets a short little line if you want to see what they have to say before a fight. They're always the same between all of a character's stages, so I'll only need to screenshot them once. Also, since you are using new characters, make sure to adjust their Install Skills as necessary. My personal guiding principle will be trying to create Install Skill setups as appropriate as possible to each character. So Nameless with a lot of killing power is right out, since he is pretty weak as a Servant, lore-wise.



I've actually never used his feature, but it is certainly there if you don't feel like grinding with a particular unit.



Most Side Story levels are based around main story levels. Nameless' first is based on Flame Poem stage 2 (the one with Blood Fort Andromeda), and his second is based on Flame Poem stage 4. You'll see how. As with free battle, you can select any side missions from anyone in the game (with the exception of the secret character if you haven't unlocked her).



This mission needs to be explained a bit, if you see it come up. When it says "During a battle" it actually means "In the first battle". So, for example, if you engaged Lu Bu during a stage, and he hit you first, you fail the mission, even if you engage Medusa later and hit her first. This makes it one of the easiest missions to fail.


Nameless stage 1 For all the Servants, their first two stages the intro, stage, and outro will all be one video, but for the third stage, the first two will be combined while the third will be its own video.

Each of you, commence your attacks in unison from the entry point assigned to you! I shall give the signal shortly!

Well well, it seems I'm finally in the thick of it. I'd committed to the military, but to think I'd be sent to the front lines... And to be paired with you. I wonder if our King even wants to win.

Oh yeah, same here. There's no way I'd ever want to work together with you. You play defense, and I play offense. Our tastes and methods are complete opposites, aren't they?

They are. So the two of us should attack from different routes. I hope you can take care of the enemy general on your end. That spear hasn't rusted from all your time as a court servant, has it?

It doesn't rust, shit-face. And I see that big mouth of yours works too. ...But are you sure you're okay with all this? Don't you have other shit to take care of?

As more lore, Cu Chulainn and Nameless quite dislike each other. While every time one has showed up, the other has as well, it's not really because of that, even if Cu is getting pretty tired of seeing his face. Mostly it's because Cu's the kind of guy who likes being in the thick of a fight, and not the kind of guy who approves of fighting from a distance or killing without the enemy seeing his face. Nameless prefers whatever gets the job done, and cares nothing for honor in a fight.

Related, but Cu is one of the reasons Nameless was summoned during the 5th Holy Grail War we're familiar with. Early in FSN, Cu stabs Shirou right through the heart because the latter unintentionally saw his fight with Nameless during FSN's prologue. While Shirou is at death's door, the school idol Tohsaka Rin, Master of Nameless, came across his near-dead body and used magic stored in her pendant to bring him back to the world of the living. She leaves the pendant at the scene and takes off before Shirou recovers. Shirou pockets the pendant and later, during the Unlimited Blade Works route, returns it to her. However, Nameless already had that pendant on his person and gave it to Rin, and when Shirou did the same later in the story, that immediately aroused her suspicion regarding her Servant's identity.

The answer, of course, was that Rin's pendant was her unintentional summoning catalyst for Archer, which he had held onto during his life as a reminder of happier days.

Well, that's that and this is this. For now, my being a Servant takes priority. Besides, I have a bit of a connection with that Master. How should I put it... It's the first time we've met, but we're not exactly strangers. So I know the Master better than you might think. Right now, I'll just do the job I've been trusted to do.

Yeah, that sounds like a pain in the ass. So I'm guessing you want to keep this a secret from the little miss, right? Man, and you call ME a "court servant".

All right! The troops' preparations are complete! All generals, charge in!

And there's our Emperor's order. I'm going on ahead, Archer. Don't let your guard down and get knocked on your ass.

I'll keep that in mind. You just be careful to not get swept off your feet!



So during Flame Poem stage 2, I talked a bit about Nameless' gameplay, but since, I've unlocked all of his abilities. He's kind of an awkward unit to play as, because his attacks are a bit on the slow side, and his most powerful abilities require a lot of consideration to use effectively, but used correctly, he's one of the most devastating in the game. His prowess is mostly at long-ranged engagements, and being able to extract himself from a tough spot with his second skill, which, as shown, has him jump high into the air and backwards, firing a powerful projectile at the ground to clear out aggressors.



So this move, S S S S T, owns bones, and is similarly one of the best and hardest to use moves in the game. Archer's S S T and this move both fire a sword named Caladbolg (which is the name of Fergus Mac Roich's sword) at enemies. Now, Nameless (or in more popular fan parlance, EMIYA) generally doesn't like to use swords other than his twin blades Kanshou and Bakuya to fight, but he does like to fire them as explosives, which destroys them, but does briefly raise their attack power. Caladbolg fired from the ground...



Fires a friggin' NUKE at range . Caladbolg flies a pretty far distance in front of him, somewhat dragging along a target, and once it reaches a boundary, explodes for huge damage to everyone caught in the blast radius. This move is pretty dangerous to use at close range, just because any attack that staggers will knock EMIYA out of the animation, and if the target just gets juggled a little, but not actually dragged along with the missile, it won't do what you want. It's most effective when you push a target or group of targets against a boundary, and then fire it. This limits the chance of the enemy being outside the blast radius.

While it is hard to use effectively, this is fun as hell, and very few moves are as good as utterly annhilating groups of enemies or doing huge damage to enemy Servants. This move is so absurdly powerful when EMIYA is in Moon Drive mode. We're talking nearly the ability to take out an enemy Servant in one hit. Quite sure it's the single most powerful attack outside of a Noble Phantasm.



EMIYA's T T T fires out one arrow, then three in a spread-shot style formation, then the third T charges up a bunch of arrows to fire out in six directions, but it takes a few seconds to come out.



EMIYA's best facet is his ability to do damage at range and effortlessly switch to close quarters combat, where he's of middling speed and low power, but plenty of powerful long range attack. S T -> T T T is a pretty bread and butter crowd control for him, as the first part will end with him knocking a target up and away from him (except for the heavy Aggressors and the one that glides around a lot), while the T T T pushes the original back even further and the final part pushes away an enemy group. The S T has the added benefit of the original arrow exploding somewhat at range and scattering weaker enemies, which are the explosions you see in that screenshot.



His Extella Manuever is a reference to a line he has in Unlimited Blade Works, where he says he could project Excalibur (the sword he uses here), but the recoil from it would probably destroy him. When a weapon is projected, it retains its ability somewhat, but because it's not the genuine article, it is a bit weaker. However, even in a weakened form, people who are not Artoria are really not equipped to handle the power of Excalibur, and in one of FSN's endings, Shirou's projection and usage of Excalibur blows him to smithereens after usage.

After this, Blood Fort Andromeda was activated, as we've come to expect. One thing I have to add...



I actually had to learn from an interview with Nasu he was somewhat surprised to learn people didn't really get what the eye was supposed to represent in Blood Fort. It's actually one of Medusa's eyes from under her visor, which she rarely takes off. I'll totally admit I never picked up on that.



S S S T throws down a field of swords in front of EMIYA, then after vacuuming a group together, he evaporates the swords or something and jumps forward with his twin swords and slashes the crowd away. Definitely more useful as a general rule than his other moves, and does a decent amount of damage, so in heavier pitched battles you'll be using that a lot.



I actually wasn't aware you could still have Blood Fort up while finishing the stage. However, while it's up it's still suicide to fight Lu Bu. Don't know about Medusa, didn't test.



You get accustomed ot it. Understand? Why don't you learn some new tricks?

...You sure like to stick your nose into other people's business. I'm sorry you've got such an annoying trait!

Since Nameless keeps track of this stuff, this is not the first time he and Medusa have met, and he's familiar with Blood Fort's ability to drain mana out of people in a targeted area from his experience in Fuyuki. I always like callbacks like that.



Ground Caladbolg right to the face... Not the prettiest way to go.



It was bound to happen... I actually had to be careful to only take out enemy Aggressors instead of Medusa, so I could take the last Sector, THEN finish the stage.





Hold it, Rider. You should go back to Caster's base.

...What is the meaning of this? I thought you were on Saber's side?

On Saber's side? Really, now. I'm just going along with that Master, the one called Hakunon. I'm not here to help the Emperor build her empire. Although that does sound interesting... And you? It's not as if you're drunk off of Caster's witchery and recalling your former passions, are you?

...You're a crafty one, aren't you? And what if that were true? What if I told you I wanted to become a monster?

...Frankly, I'd be surprised. And I'd probably swear off ever trusting women again.

I'm joking, of course. I have my own reasons for serving under Caster. I'll take your kind suggestion this time around. To stabilize this new SE.RA.PH. It looks like we have the same goal, although our motives may differ.

Good to hear. With that in mind, please forget our battle just now.

No, that's a whole other matter. I won't forget the bad blood between us, and I will pay you back many times over.

...Well, she is a snake after all. Great, another problem for the pile.