Awesome / Chaos Theory

• Archer vs. Rider vs. Saber (Chapters 3-5).
• In Chapter 4, Shirou gives Shinji a scathing lecture, and threatens to beat him unconscious if he doesn't shut up. When the idiot tries to talk back, Shirou calmly asserts that he was serious. Shinji shuts right up. This is made even better by the fact that Shirou doesn't know what to do with Shinji (due to their history), but there's no way he's letting him off scot-free for his crimes.
• Saber reading Shinji the riot act in chapter 9...and incidentally keeping Sakura from killing him. Cut to the next scene, and he's stumbling away with a bloody nose and broken ribs.
• Chapter 14: EXCALIBUR. That is all.
• From Chapter 9-11: the Enemy Mine between Archer, Lancer and True Assassin against Caster Alter and the fight that follows.
  • Most particularly, Lancer manages to unleash a successful Gae Bolg towards the end of the conflict. Sadly, it fails to kill her, and he is subsequently consumed by the Grail.
  • Say what you will about True Assassin, but he definitely had his moment in that fight.
    Assassin: "You Missed."
• Chapter 14:
  • Despite believing that he might be killed in the process, Archer manages to blindside Caster Alter with Gram (the sword of Sigurd), leaving her to flee licking her wounds afterwards.
  • The Shadow actually tried to corrupt Archer, but Archer simply pulled a holy sword and slashed it off, something no other Servant has managed to accomplish. Which is actually canon as Archer mentioned in Heaven's Feel that, since he is not a "normal" heroic spirit, the Shadow can't corrupt him.
    Archer: "I am going to look really impressive if this doesn't get me killed."
• Chapter 16: Saber and Berserker (and later, Archer) versus Gilgamesh. It is utterly glorious.
  • Especially when Archer manages to deflect frickin' Ea with Rho Aias, granted it pierces through like it was tissue paper, but it was strong enough to reduce Ea's blast (which is more powerful than Excalibur) into a relatively harmless wind gust!
  • Before that, the same chapter depicts Illya's Shut Up, Hannibal! to Gilgamesh. She's really come a long way since the story's start, hasn't she?
• Chapter 19: Rin beats up Shinji and steals the Book of the False Attendant, becoming Rider's new Master.
• Chapter 22:
  • Shirou going after Caster like something possessed in response to her hurting Illya, it's awesome enough to get Archers's approval.
  • A partially corrupted Saber slaughtering Berserker Alter, while No Selling everything Caster can throw at her and then finishing him off with an EXCALIBUR blast to the face.
• In general, Lancer Alter for being such a massive Wild Card. Besides resisting Caster's attempts at torture, he eventually catches Assassin off-guard and kills him with a Gae Bolg, backstabbing him at an opportune moment (to the Affably Evil Servant's shock).
• Gilgamesh bringing judgment upon the remaining Servants by creating a meteor shower of noble phantasms over the whole mountain and the nearby area, creating house-sized craters, breaking through the mountain's spirit-repelling barrier and Lancer's Protection from Arrows skill.
• Shirou and Archer working in perfect sync to take down Lancer Alter.
• Gilgamesh somehow not dying when the Shadow dissolves his skin and face.
• Rin and Shirou's answer to Wand!Caster firing twenty grail-powered lasers at them? Use Rho Aias to ride the blast through a wall and right into the room Sakura, Kirei, and Illya are in. This is so awesome that they actually manage to shock Sakura, breaking her calm for the first time since her transformation. Rin's response to the whole thing is the cherry on top.
  Rin: Hey everyone. I just got sent skidding down a rough stone hallway riding the shockwave of an explosion. I'm upset."
• Dark Saber bringing down a chunk of the mountain with Excalibur. Kid Gil starts to realize why his future self likes her.
• Chapter 38:
  • Rin, crippled and paralyzed in her fight with Kotomine and with three black keys buried in her back, uses her last jewel to shoot a lance of fire through herself to instantly incinerate Kirei's heart.
  • Illya is able to purify Saber Alter through a combination of the Dress of Heaven and a You Are Better Than You Think You Are speech to bring Saber back from the Despair Event Horizon.
  • A newly-reborn Saber crash-lands in the middle of Rider's fight with Assassin and Caster's dragon — in her pure-white Saber Lily getup, no less — and immediately begins kicking ass and taking names.
• Chapter 39:
  • After basically holding the line against Dark Sakura using Unlimited Blade Works, Shirou proceeds to lead Sakura right into a trap that enables him to hit the Greater Grail with Rule Breaker. Yes, he defeated her completely by himself.
  • Villainous example for Kirei, who, despite having his heart utterly destroyed, still managed to carry himself all the way to the Greater Grail from his fight with Rin and restore Angra Mainyu.
• Chapter 42 is made of this. Sakura and Illya use Angra Mainyu's Noble Phantasm against him, hijacking his summoning to summon the entire Throne of Heroes!
  • Archer!Hercules and Medea Lily obliterating thousands of curses to save Sakura and Illya, followed up by Hercules declaring that he will not stand by and watch as the world ends and challenging the other heroes to answer the call. Ten seconds later the mass of curses blotting out the sky are nuked out of existence.
  • Chiron, Achilles, and Robin Hood team up to protect Fuyuki from the curses. All of them.
  • Nero, Tamamo, and Hans exchanging banter while holding the line, followed by Nero dragging the enemy army into Aestus Domus Aurea.
  • Karna and Drake holding off the curses trying to leave Japan, with Karna using Brahmastra Kundala to blow a hole in the mass of curses "wide enough to sail dozens of ships through side by side and stretching across the entire horizon." Launcher indeed.
  • The Hassans, ALL OF THEM, one-shot five-hundred beasts in the blink of an eye. Even King Hassan gets in on the action.
  • Merlin activates the Garden of Avalon.
  • Irisviel tells Shirou You Are Not Alone, activating Avalon, saving him from EMIYA Alter and allowing Saber to turn the tide against Morgan.
  • Inspired by Saber's turnabout, Kid Gil literally burns himself away to return to his adult form, the transformation alone blowing away Angra's influence over the world before revealing Gil dual wielding Ea and Enkidu. The King of Heroes has returned and is holding nothing back!
  • After Sakura's words give her a Heroic Second Wind, Rider finally activates Monstrous Strength and turns back into the Gorgon. She one-shots Medusa Lily and tells Stheno and Euryale they are next.
  • The summoned heroes aren't just holding the line. They're killing Angra's curses faster than he can make them. To reiterate, the summoned heroes are taking on the physical manifestation of every single bit of darkness in humanity and the darkness is the one running out of forces.
  • Deliberate Fridge Brilliance is invoked and lampshaded for this: Heroes would not be heroes recorded on the Throne, bolstering mankind to unseen heights, if they didn't outmatch the darkness in all of mankind. Though obviously that very concept is beyond Avenger's ability to grasp.
• Chapter 43 keeps the awesome going.
  • Heracles, Medea, Atalanta and Spartacus teaming up to take on Avenger and protect Illya and Sakura from it.
  • Medusa spotting Stheno under Presence Concealment.
  • Shirou and Saber teaming up against the Morgan-possessed Emiya Alter, with the former using his bow to support Saber from the rear. They triumph. Oh, and Saber has been working on replicating Tsubame Gaeshi; she's gotten as far as two swings, one a millisecond after the other, in basically a day. Then they start making their way out of the mountain, wrecking everything in their path.
  • Gil curb-stomping Iskandar and defeating Enkidu, without using Ea.
  • Shirou, Saber, Heracles, Medea, Gorgon!Medusa and Lancer teaming up to go straight for Avenger's core. And they do it by trapping Avenger in Unlimited Blade Works, massively weakening it by cutting it off from humanity, allowing Lancer to finish the job... And also get revenge on Kirei in the process, who was implied to still be alive as Avenger's core.
  • Avenger, in its death throes, tries to kill every living thing in Japan with black rain. With all the heroic spirits fading away and nobody with a Noble Phantasm able to nuke a country-sized OH WAIT Gil's back, and he's pissed. Cue a spectacular "The Reason You Suck" Speech to Avenger before obliterating it with Ea at full power.
  • Gilgamesh's entrance alone is this. The black rain starts falling and the remaining heroic spirits have reached their Heroic R Ro D, with the Hope Spot of the Throne of Heroes fading as the curses begin to fall. And then for a single moment, a brilliant emerald light shines, and the entirety of Mt. Enzo and the sky above it disappears, being completely and utterly gone. And in the middle of it is Gilgamesh - his armor long destroyed, with the only weapon he had being Ea. He's covered in blood and mud and is so injured that his bones were visible in multiple locations. The narration itself declares that this is the moment in which he is at the most broken and vulnerable he's ever been. And everyone who can see him immediately takes several steps back out of fear.
• Chapter 44:
  • Say what you will, but Rin having the balls to tell the Association to go to hell, now that magic has been revealed to the world, has to count. And when they try to attack her, Illya and Saber put a stop to it.
  • As per canon, Zelretch makes an awesome entrance. He even laughs when Rin tells him she'll put working on duplicating the Jeweled Sword on her weekend schedule. It helps that she actually pulls it off with Illya and Shirou's help in Heaven's Feel, so it won't be very hard for her.
  • Sakura and Rider utterly manhandling Jubstacheit and browbeating him into helping build a proper body for Illyasviel.
  • The fact that Sakura knows how to replicate Heaven's Feel.
  • The very fact that this story managed to subvert the Downer Ending that was implied in the unseen canon Illya route.