“Farewell, Berserker”.
What I was expecting from this fight was something considerably less pitiable and brutal than what we received. We’ve all seen “some shit” in anime but I certainly wasn’t expecting Gilgamesh to blind her and let her pitiably fumble about the room looking for Berserker’s corpse. I don’t particularly like her but that was hard to watch and unbearably sad. These are the things that make Gilgamesh a great villain though – his unyeilding nature, his unrelenting mannerisms and brutal tendencies. I never thought I’d say this, but poor Illya…I didn’t even like seeing the wolves attack the poor girl. I suppose my emotions are easily manipulated, but it is decidedly sad…
In any event, Berserker’s resolve and refusal to die impressed even me, and we all know that he’s not one that is killed once and done with. Unfortunately for him, Gilgamesh bled every last drop of blood out of him several times, something that had even Shiro writhing. Ultimately, Tohsaka was unable to restrain him and he revealed his presence to Gilgamesh. Great!
We were also treated to a rather heartwrenching flashback featuring Illya and the source of her lack of trust in others – mostly she was fed a lie by the corrupted grail from Fate Zero that told her of Kiritsugu’s “Betrayal”, when all of us know it was not so black and white. As for why Kiritsugu did not revisit Illya, that I am unsure…perhaps an explanation was given or hinted and I was too dense to pick up on it (It’s happened before!)
Illya and Berserker are now out of the picture, leaving our two heroes without allies once again. Given that they stand against Assassin, Caster, Archer, Saber, and Souichirou, they certainly have their work cut out for them as on paper this is quite an unwinnable situation. My advice would be to pit some of their enemies against each other in the hopes of narrowing their numbers. For now, Shiro and Rin have more pressing matters – that is, dealing with the King of Kings, Gilgamesh. Hopefully they can escape alive.
