(Shirou's pov)

I was about to go to the archery club for my daily session, but I was stopped by someone who grabbed me by the arm.

"Shero! What a coincidence for us to meet here in this hallway. I would even call it fate!"

It was Luvia who probably planned to invite me to eat or something. I just want to relax by training in archery, so I'll refuse her.

"Hello, Edelfelt-San. Do you need something from me?" I gave her one of my best smiles which dealt a lot of damage to her psyche and made her timid.

"W-well, I thought since I'm new in this school, I hoped for you to guide me." With every word, she became quieter. Now I feel bad for planning on rejecting her.

"I already have plans today..." Luvia became dejected hearing me, but I wasn't done talking. "But I can show you the archery club that I'm part of. It may be boring for you, but-"

I didn't even need to finish my sentence for her mood to do 180.

"Archery!? What a wonderful and noble sport that you are part of. Just what I expect from you, my dear Shero!" She grabbed me by the arm and held it as if her life depended on it.

Where did that shyness from the beginning go? I looked at her face, which was full of happiness, and internally sighed.

I guess I'll humor her for now.

"Just so you know, I won't be able to guide you, so the only thing you could do there is watch others practice and try archery for yourself."

"That's alright, Shero. I can't expect you to change your plans just because of me, hohohoho~. Also, please call me Luvia if you want."

Luvia then took out her phone to call someone and started talking on the side. From what I heard, it was something about changing the plans and aborting the mission.

What the hell did she plan? With her resources, it could be anything.

(3rd's pov)

Shirou currently was facing his biggest challenge to date. Next to him, grabbing his arm and squeezing it very hard, was a blonde-haired Ojou-sama, also known as Luvia, a new transfer student, and she was half the cause of his problem.

The other half was a girl standing in front of him, smiling with her eyes closed, trying to look as kind and calm as possible, and she was doing a great job at it since no one except the red-haired boy noticed it. Maybe Luvia had a strange feeling coming from Sakura but not much more.

It was time to use the entirety of his knowledge to escape this situation.

"Sakura, Luvia asked me to be her guide today, but since we have club activities today, we agreed that I'll show her our club instead."

"I see. Senpai is very kind, after all, so of course, he would help his classmate. How about I'll show Edelfelt-Senpai the club while you can prepare for today's practice."

In Sakura's mind was only one thing at the moment to separate an intruder from her Senpai. For some reason, she felt that the Ojou-sama in front of her is a dangerous enemy.

She was feeling very conflicted. Normally she wouldn't be so... possessive, but the archery club was kind of a haven for her where she could practice what she liked and be with the one who gave her life meaning and right now, it was being invaded, and it wasn't helping that Luvia was being very touchy with Shirou while Sakura couldn't gather her courage to do the same in fear that she would destroy what she has in the present. It didn't mean, though, that she would let someone take away her happiness.

"Oh right, Shero mentioned that I could try archery for myself." Luvia snapped her fingers, and a muscular older man with glasses appeared behind her. He was wearing a standard butler uniform and was carrying a standard eastern bow with a quiver full of arrows. "August here prepared the bow and arrows for me to use so I can start away."

Everyone in the archery range looked at Luvia and the mystery butler, and all of them started questioning if their eyes worked properly.

"Edelfelt-Senpai, you can use only bows and arrows provided by the school for safety reasons..." Sakura explained to her senpai.

"I see. Since I came here as a guest, I'll comply." With another snap of her fingers, August disappeared together with the archery equipment that he had brought.

---

After changing her clothes, Luvia was ready to try out archery, but she stopped when her eyes laid on Shirou, who was already started practicing. He was fully focused on hitting the target. Even to the untrained eye, it was obvious how focused he truly was. His eyes, like that of a hawk, never left their mark as he slowly pulled the string of his bow. He stayed in this position for a short while until he let go of the arrow in his hand. Said arrow flew at high speed through the whole range until it hit precisely in the middle of the target.

The whole process was mesmerizing, especially for Luvia, as it was her first time witnessing it. It somehow reminded her of the time she saw him doing the high jump in middle school.

"You see, senpai is always like that when he is practicing. He is the ace of the club even though he refuses to participate in competitions, and as far as I know, he never missed a shot unless he wanted to." Sakura started explaining, and her voice became tender as she was talking about Shirou.

At that moment, Luvia realized that the girl next to her was her rival, but at the same time, right now, she was too busy admiring Shirou's training to care.

(Shirou's pov)

I don't know what happened, but nothing bad happened during Sakura and Luvia's meeting. I don't know if it's an omen or something, but if something is going right, be prepared for the trouble to come, and I feel like I know what will be coming soon.

With that said, I prepared myself to meet Rin, Illya, Luvia, and Miyu under the bridge.

---

"You are late..."

It seemed that I was the last to come as everyone was already gathered.

"Sorry, I must have missed the message about the meeting time." I, of course, didn't get any message since they had no way to contact me. We need to fix that soon.

"Since we are all here, then let's go-"

"Wait." I cut her off. "Before you decide on something stupid, listen to me." They frowned, hearing how I talked as if what they were doing right now was stupid. "I would advise on waiting before you try taking this card on."

"And why is that?" Rin questioned with a hand on her waist. "Waiting won't accomplish anything at the moment, and the faster we collect all the cards, the faster this town is safe."

"And the faster we finish, the more competent we'll look to Zelretch. You forgot to say that." I decided to be nice enough to finish her sentence which made both girls flinch. Both Luvia and Rin were thinking the same thing, not that they would admit it.

"Going back to the topic. I'm telling you two to train Illya and Miyu to prepare them for this fight. If you go in as you are now, you are going to lose." I warned them, although they probably won't listen.

"I have one question, Archer. Why didn't you propose it the last time?"  Luvia narrowed her eyes. "Wouldn't it be more logical to do it so we wouldn't waste today?"

"Great question Luvia~ and the answer is fairly simple. I know that you won't listen to me, and I'm just waiting so I can say I told you so." Not expecting an innocent answer like that they didn't know how to react. "Now that I'm done, do as you desire."

I walked to the pillar under the bridge and leaned on it.

---

Just 5 minutes later, four girls appeared in a magic circle. They were all beaten up, with their clothes tattered and a bit burned, and they all looked at me. I think they could feel my smirk that was hidden under the mask.

"Not. A. Word."

I don't even need to say anything. They all know that I told them so.

"I don't know what you mean. I'm just lonely and maybe, maybe not a handsome archer that is happy to give advice to anyone who listens. Unfortunately, you won't find out as I plan on showing my face only to my family and future wife."

Rin and Luvia were ready to start arguing with me, but I felt a light tug on my sleeve. It was Miyu with her usual blank expression.

"Archer-san, do you know how to defeat this card?"

I nodded, and at that, everyone started listening carefully.

"You need to learn how to fly."

"Ah, I see. All I need to do is to fly, right?"

Illya instantly raised above the ground and started floating, making everyone around her dumbfounded. It was, after all, quite complex to achieve, but for Illya, it was obvious that magical girls are supposed to fly. Luckily for her, all she needed to do was to have a strong and concrete image, and Illya had imagination to spare inside her mind.

Although the younger girls were thinking about her training arc that was about to begin, but the older ones were skeptical for obvious reasons... I knew too much. How should I know how to help their situation if I wasn't there with them? That's why I decided to answer their question before they even asked it.

"It was obvious by observing your state. You all were close to each other and had similar injuries meaning the enemy has an area of effect attack/attacks. As soon as you came back, most of you dropped your head down from exhaustion, but you were looking up before as if to check if it was safe, so the enemy's attack came from above you, and since your barriers couldn't defend everything whatever attacked you was strong on the magical side since the physical attack would leave other types of injuries.

It's all speculation, but I concluded that our enemy is probably of Caster class this time and was floating above you while casting powerful spells. Please correct me if I'm wrong."

""...""

They were speechless at my bullshit deduction. I wouldn't believe it if someone would tell me their answer based on speculation like this unless his name was Sherlock Holmes and maybe Da Vinci.

"Wow, amazing Archer-san. How did you do it!?"

Only Illya was impressed by my detective work.

"Experience." That was my only answer.

(Illya's pov)

I was about to start training in the forest to master my flying. My magic wand, Ruby, was guiding me and teaching me about the importance of magical energy conservation.

Before I began, though, I remembered that I still had the Archer card that I got from Rin-san.

I asked Ruby if it was fine to use it before we start training, and she agreed. To be honest, I was excited. It says Archer, so it should be a bow. I wonder what kind of ultimate weapon it is...

I put the card on top of Ruby.

"Include!"

At the sound of my voice, Ruby transformed into a matte black bow. I was ready to practice shooting using this, but this bow had no arrows.

...

"Ruby, where are arrows?"

"There are none."

*Sigh* It seems that it won't help us in our fight, though, on closer inspection...

"Ruby, does this bow look familiar?"

"Now that you mention it, it does. It looks exactly the same as the bow Archer used against Rider card."

Why is it like that, and what does it mean?

How exciting!!! It's just like in 'Magical Girl Warriors' when the magical girl Musashi meets the masked 'No name', which creates a whole mystery around his character and motivation as everything he does is suspicious, but at the same time, he helps her group of Magical girls.

At the same time, as I was daydreaming about the similarities between my favorite show and reality, Ruby was thinking very seriously, which was very unusual for her, but I didn't notice it at the time.

---

END

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