Well, the most basic and obvious limitation would be prana supply. After all, he doesn't have a monster Tohsaka battery anymore, making it significantly more difficult to simply rain swords on people.

 

Yea I had a chuckle at that. In Flight is a lot of things, but well-paced is absolutely not one of them.

I am mildly hopeful we'll get something interesting next chapter to finish it off, but I doubt it. 20:1 odds they show up, there's a big chaotic mess that's hard to follow where it's everyone vs the protagonists, the womenfolk "hold them off" while Shirou charges into the building, then confronts Minaka and pulls out Unlimited Blade Works, UBW is changed in some way, and there's a big climactic clash that Shirou just barely wins, despite the fact that UBW means he should win with minimal effort in half a second or so, then everyone walks off into the sunset. I really can't find it in me to expect anything more than that from the fic at this point.

 

He still has enough to pull out a pretty decent rain if he can partially manifest UBW.

 

You are assuming a story has to follow things such a thing as canon.

 

This is what pissed me off most about this chapter. As soon as I knew it was coming down to an epic magus vs. magus fight, the solution was so obvious that I can't believe Shirou didn't think of it.

The more sekirei Shirou wings, the more powerful he becomes. So, why not just wing them all? He can project Rule Breaker, get stabby with the other ashikabi, wing their sekirei, rinse and repeat until he has both a fatalistically loyal army of powerful aliens and enough prana to EXCALIBAAAAAAH Minaka and the MBI headquarters into dust. Or rain swords. Whatever. And then undo the unwanted bonds with Rule Breaker again.

He could potentially become powerful enough to stand toe to toe with a counter guardian.

I kept on reading the chapter, constantly waiting for Shirou to make the realisation and start getting stabby, but noooo... that idiot stays up until 1am to plan with Matsu instead.

This is as stupid as refusing to use the MBI cards and decidedly more likely to result in his death.

 

Shirou probably doesn't want to deal with that prissy, picky sword and it's song again.

For real though, that would be the smart thing to do, but I don't expect Gabe to actually think of the smart thing to do. Or if he did, immediately sideline it because (for some reason) he's trying to force the Sekirei half of the crossover to be superior to the FSN half.

 

For once, this story seems to have gone in a direction I actually like. I always thought it'd be cool if Minaka ended up being in on the whole magus thing.

No longer does Shirou have the advantage of being an unknown quantity. In fact, in this case Minaka probably has had ample opportunity to study Shirou's magic and prepare countermeasures for it. As Shirou pointed out, they're in Minaka's workshop and that could make the difference. Shirou may be overpowered in a normal one on one fight, but a magus in his workshop is basically playing with cheats turned on and should make it a lot more challenging. Minaka was preparing to fight Counter Guardians, so I don't think it'll be all that easy for Shirou.

I have regained interest in this fic after I lost it in the fuckup that was Saber and Rin. This is becoming what I was looking forward towards.

Of course, I really shouldn't get my hopes up that anything gets executed well from here...

 

I don't think we'll be disappointed in the execution. Gabe's pretty good at the epic fights. I'm looking forward to it too.

 

His fight scenes while good, ignore canon which will irk me when Shirou nearly dies when he should of won easily :/ It's why post Holy Grail stories don't work, short of the DAA nothing can match Shirou at this point.

 

I think Kischur Zelretch Schweinorg might have something to say about that.

 

Zelretch is a DAA, and I suppose Aoko can beat Shirou as well. But still my point stands.

 

Yeah, I'm fairly sure one Gae Bolg would take care of anything short of either a DAA, Aoko, or I guess anyone w/ Fragarach.

 

He doesn't even need to do that. All he needs to beat any normal magus and just about anyone else either not human or not a Sorcerer is to take a page out of Gilgamesh's book and shoot swords at whoever. And for most he wouldn't need more than one sword. Caladbolg or Hrunting thrown like a fastball alone should be enough for all but the best mortal opponents, and he wouldn't even need to break them to do it.

There's a reason Gilgamesh was able to match most of the Servants in both Grail Wars without needing to physically wield a weapon after all.

 

Yes. He always barely wins. He always wins. And the Sekirei are useless ...
But hey, it's somewhat entertaining.

 

Fate's magic system is more than diverse enough for anyone with enough preparation to utterly crush Shirou. Shirou is a one-trick pony who is predictable. He can only survive Holy Grail wars beause they're filled with honorable servants, or servants incapable of doing more than charging blindly into combat, or even if they are capable of underhanded things, their masters restrain them in the sake of honor and glory - Shirou is barely a magus, afterall.

"Balancing" Shirou isn't hard at all. Just force him to fight prepared opponents that have mastered magecraft.

 

Hahaha a magic system you must not understand that well then. NP are the end all most OP bs in the Nasuverse, bounded fields can't completely stop a magus. Post UBW good end has Shirou with a fully powered Avalon which means he can take a Gae Bolg and survive. So his offensive power is unmatched, and killing him is ridiculously hard.

 

Totally true. If it was not for the fact that this magus would have to plan for and actually succeed in countering everything from Excalibur to Rule Breaker I would agree with you. The number of people who have seen UBW and lived can be counted on one hand, and it is damn near impossible for anyone who isn't a DAA to live long enough to create the shit ton of mystic codes needed to stop the might of his Reality Marble.

 

The best part is that if any of those mystic codes are weapons Shirou can almost instantly analyse them and plan around them. If they are swords, or blades in any form, he can just trace them and use them against his foes.

-SK

 

43 is up, we finally find out what Rule Breaker does to a winged Sekirei.