Fate Apocrypha – Episode 21 Review

The Master and Student clash for the final time.

The twenty-first episode of Fate Apocrypha opens with Chiron realizing that Shirou’s goal is to materialize the souls of humanity, which is a form of salvation in the form of immortality. Achilles is willing to bet his life on it because he’s lived through war and lost friends, so he feels if it’s worth fighting over and calls Chiron out on being no different in wanting to retrieve the immortality he lost. Since the two aren’t going to back down on their respective sides, they both decide to just go all out against one another.

Meanwhile, Astolfo dodges laser fire in an effort to get closer to the Hanging Gardens and, when that will no longer suffice, he unleashes his Noble Phantasm to do so. Since he actually remembered the true name, it blocks the attack that knocked him down the last time entirely and allows him to pick apart the Hanging Gardens until Karna shows up. However, Karna can’t even hit him as he pulls another ability out called Dimensional Shift that lets him dodge the attacks even easier.

Shakesphere then informs us that Astolfo’s legend had him robbed of his sanity by the moon, so when its a New Moon he regains his abilities in their fullest. But since its driving them further from their objective of getting rid of the defenses, Sieg decides to give Karna the fight he wanted by transforming. And that’s all while Mordred and Kairi approach the Hanging Gardens in a stealth attempt to get the Holy Grail.

Astolfo manages to destroy the remaining defenses at the cost of his Hippogriff, leaving him to fall unconcious before Semiramis and at her mercy. She has none and promptly tries to kill him out of anger. But, before she can off him, Mordred and Kairi show up and crash the plane into a barrier she raises.

Then we cut back to Achilles and Chiron. The former uses his Noble Phantasm to pull a Reality Marble that stops time, nullify divinity and luck, and prevent anyone else from intruding. So it basically sets the ground for the two warriors to fight until a victor is determined and they go at it fist-to-fist in an epic fight that eschews blades for good old-fashion beating one another to death.

The fight continues until Chiron gets a hole punched into his chest and the arena drops. Chiron asks Achilles to give the Black Faction one of his Noble Phantasms as a final request from his teacher, before he fulfills his duty as a Servant by releasing his final Noble Phantasm to destroy Achilles’ heel. That deprives him of his immortality, so that the other Black Faction Servants have a shot of beating him, before Chiron finally dies.

We then cut back to Atalanta still trying and failing to kill Jeanne. She laments the despair of the children who died and decides to use the Caledonia Boar’s pelt to gain enough strength to kill Ruler at the expense of her heroic spirit nature. The act turns her into a monstrous form before the episode ends with Achilles keeping his promise to Chiron and entrusting Astolfo with his Noble Phantasm.

Review Time.

Another Servant bites the dust, and this time its Chiron. He was an interesting Servant, one who had to play the role of Teacher and Enemy to Achilles. Both respected one another to a high degree, so there were no hard feelings, but their views were different in how they believed humanity’s salvation could come about.

For those who don’t know, in the Fate Verse, Chiron was poisoned by a Hydra but couldn’t die due to the fact that he was immortal. So his suffering would never end if he didn’t have his divinity taken from him, leading to him passing on and becoming a constellation.  However, his divinity was the only connection he had to one of his parents, so he wanted to reclaim it using a wish if possible.

In the end, I think he was one of my favorite Servants in the war and I wished that he would survive to stay with Fiore. But alas…

Moving on, we also get to learn more about Astolfo.  His legend is tied into the moon, so when there isn’t one in the night sky he can go all out. Considering the sheer amount of Noble Phantasms he has, that’s a great limitation that rivals how Jack the Ripper’s NP could instantly kill any female Servant (barring Ruler).

He also considered himself a failure of a Servant, not only disobeying his first Master (though she was insane) but for the lack of ability compared to other Servants. Yet, Sieg trusted him utterly and so he feels grateful to him. Considering that he lost all of his Noble Phantasms from what I saw, he’s in a very weakened position, but Chiron looked out for him and hooked him up with one of Achilles’ so there’s that.

Other than that, the remaining battles look to be focused around settling old scores. Karna wants his battle with Siegfried, Atalanta wants to kill Jeanne without fail for child murder, and Mordred wants to take Semiramis’ head off. But there are still some uncertainties given that we don’t known who Achilles is going after next,  Shakespeare is just chilling in his room and recording it all, while Shirou is talking to the Holy Grail.

Still, I’m looking forward to seeing how it all ends.


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