"Hah? An alliance?"
In the School's Small Woods, Shinji Matou looked at the two people in front of him, spreading his hands with an exaggerated expression as if he had heard something unbelievable. "Should I thank you two for thinking so highly of me?"
"Shinji, we really have no other choice." Emiya Shirou could only step forward helplessly and say, "The Einzbern Family's Servant is simply too powerful, so we can only..."
"You can only come to me?" Hearing this, Shinji Matou sneered, dropping his exaggerated smile. "Say, Emiya, since when did you and Tohsaka become so close?"
"Looking at you two, you probably hooked up last night, didn't you? Since you became a Master, why didn't you come to me? We're friends, aren't we?"
"This..." Emiya Shirou froze. He felt that Shinji Matou's mood was a bit off, but he still tried to explain, "I didn't know anything last night. If Tohsaka hadn't saved me, I probably would have—"
"Oh, a life-saving grace, huh." The look in Shinji Matou's eyes as he stared at the two of them was full of coldness.
Why?
Why could a half-baked Magus like Emiya Shirou be chosen, but not me?
I'm clearly the heir to a magus lineage. I clearly have more talent. Why... why did it have to be him?
Looking at his former friend in front of him, jealousy tore at his heart like a wild beast.
His aptitude isn't any better than mine, is it? He probably can't even cast a few proper spells of Magecraft. On what grounds was he chosen?
"Hey," Shinji Matou looked at the two of them, the corners of his mouth curling up in an exaggerated smirk. "I have a lot of confidence in my Servant. For the two of you to just show up in front of me like this..."
"Rider!" He raised the book in his hand and shouted loudly.
As soon as his words fell, a woman with long purple hair appeared beside him.
"Tohsaka, oh Tohsaka," Shinji Matou eyed Tohsaka Rin brazenly. "How about this? Get on your knees and beg me, and I'll agree. What do you say?"
"Archer," Tohsaka Rin didn't answer. Instead, she directly summoned Archer. "Keep a close eye on that Servant."
"This is your Servant? Archer?" Shinji Matou scoffed as he looked at Archer. "He doesn't look like much."
After he finished speaking, he turned to Emiya Shirou. "Say, Emiya, where's your Servant? Call her out and let me see!"
"...There's no need." Emiya Shirou's mind was still clear. He didn't reveal the intelligence that Artoria was incapable of Spiritualization, and simply stated calmly, "We aren't here to fight today, but to form an alliance with you."
"You're acting... like you're giving me charity." Hearing this, something snapped in Shinji Matou's head again. "I just can't stand seeing you like this!"
"My Rider is really strong, you bastard. I'll let you witness it..."
"Her name is Medusa, right?" Before Shinji Matou could finish, Emiya Shirou suddenly spoke up while looking at the purple figure.
"What?!" Hearing this, the former raised his head in disbelief. "How could you possibly know my Servant's True Name?"
Tohsaka Rin, who was standing to the side, also looked over curiously.
Emiya Shirou didn't speak. He just looked at the Servant. For some reason, he suddenly thought of Sakura, coupled with what Miss Firefly had said...
But, shouldn't this be Sakura's Servant? Why is she in Shinji's hands?
Thinking of this, he looked at the book in Shinji Matou's hand.
If there was anything strange, it was that book. After all, neither he nor Tohsaka needed any other items to summon their Servants.
"She told you, didn't she?" But obviously, Shinji Matou had misunderstood.
"Makes sense. With how close you two are, she definitely would have told you." His face was covered in a dark cloud. "That ungrateful bitch, I'm definitely going to teach her a good lesson when I get back..."
"You still think you're going back?" Before Emiya Shirou could say anything, Tohsaka Rin bristled. "You're talking about Sakura, right?"
"From the looks of it, you seem to be planning on doing something bad." A ruthless glint flashed through her eyes. "Emiya, summon Saber. We're going to finish this guy off right here!"
If he was just running his mouth at her, Tohsaka Rin could tolerate it for the sake of victory. But to say he was going back to deal with Sakura, she would absolutely never let him off.
"Finish him off..." Emiya Shirou was clearly reluctant. After all, his relationship with Shinji Matou used to be pretty good in the past.
"Finish me off?" Hearing this, Shinji Matou acted like he had just heard a fairy tale. "Hahaha, finish me off? You already know her True Name, and you still dare to think that?"
"This is Medusa, the monster from Greek Mythology. Although she wasn't summoned in the form of a serpent god, her strength is more than enough!"
"Just the two of you..."
"Master!" Just then, Artoria rushed over from outside the woods. "I felt the aura of a burst of Magical Energy. Did something happen?"
"No, it's nothing, Saber," Emiya Shirou quickly reassured her. He was the last person who wanted a fight to break out.
"This is your Servant?" Seeing this, Shinji Matou's face suddenly turned cold. "Finish her, Rider!"
"Wait, Shinji, don't be impulsive!" Emiya Shirou tried to stop him, but Medusa had already thrown out her chains. In an instant, the chains wound around the woods, trapping several of them in the middle like a net.
Seeing this, Artoria also released her Magical Energy, waiting in full readiness.
The next moment, the surrounding chains shot towards her, instantly binding her right hand.
"Archer!" Tohsaka Rin hurriedly commanded upon seeing this.
But Archer didn't even move, just standing there and watching.
"Hey, Archer, why are you..." Tohsaka Rin wanted to say something else, but the fight had already started on the other side.
Using the chains, Medusa's body shot towards Artoria like an arrow leaving the bowstring. But the next moment, the latter released her Magical Energy, grabbed the chains wrapped around her right hand, and ruthlessly slammed them towards the ground!
Boom!
That force pulled Medusa along the chains, smashing her heavily into the ground. Just as the latter wretchedly managed to stand up, she saw the opposing Servant reach out and give a tug.
She was dragged over without any power to resist. Artoria seized the opportunity, planted her feet firmly, and delivered a devastating punch!
Medusa was blown away like a ragdoll, unable to get up again.
Seeing this, Artoria felt a wave of speechlessness in her heart.
To be honest, she had already held back. After all, they had agreed to come and recruit an ally. Otherwise, it wouldn't have been a punch just now, but a sword piercing through the chest, sending that Servant straight back to the Throne of Heroes.
"Shirou, Rin," she turned to look behind her. "I don't think a Servant of this strength can be of any use in the battle against Berserker."
"Ah, this..." Tohsaka Rin looked at Medusa, who couldn't get up from the crater, and then at the effortlessly relaxed Saber, not knowing what to say.
"Speaking of being unqualified, the opposing Master is actually much more fitting than Emiya," Archer said leisurely at this moment. "After all, his Mana is even weaker than Emiya's. He simply can't bear the consumption of a Servant of this level."
Medusa wasn't weak at all; she was completely dragged down by Shinji Matou. Even though Emiya Shirou was in a similar situation, he could at least squeeze out a little bit of Mana Supply for Artoria.
Shinji Matou couldn't squeeze out any Mana... He relied entirely on his Servant attacking ordinary people to accumulate it bit by bit.
Normally, he wouldn't speak so harshly about Shinji Matou, but who asked him to say that he was going back to teach Sakura a lesson.
A single sentence had pissed off three people.
"Hey," Over on Shinji Matou's side, he seemingly hadn't recovered from the shock yet. His entire person was sluggish as he turned and walked toward Medusa behind him, kicking her.
"Who gave you permission to be knocked down like this?" The Book of the False Attendant in his hand lit up with a purple glow. In an instant, Medusa let out a muffled groan. She was being tortured by the contract.
"Stand up! I'm telling you to stand up!"
The purple Book of the False Attendant continued to emit light. "If you get knocked down so easily, doesn't that prove that I'm incompetent?"
"Stand up for me!"
"...It really is my fault for having even a shred of expectation for you, Shinji Matou." Seeing this, Tohsaka Rin was speechless to the extreme. "Forget it, let's go, Emiya-kun."
"Shinji..." Emiya Shirou was still looking at him worriedly, but a loud boom in the distance interrupted his words.
"That direction is..." Hearing this, Archer instantly rushed to a high point, gazed out into the distance, and then returned to the ground.
"The Matou Family has been attacked!" He stated concisely.
"What?!" Tohsaka Rin felt like the sky was falling when she heard this. "But it's daytime! Who on earth did this?"
"I haven't even finished writing my report from a month ago!"
"Wait, Sakura didn't come to the School today, she seemed to be feeling unwell?" Emiya Shirou suddenly remembered, his pupils shaking as he said, "Right now... she should be at home!"
"Let's go!" Hearing this, Tohsaka Rin pulled Emiya Shirou to skip school. On the side, Shinji Matou also reluctantly roused Medusa. The three of them didn't have time to argue anymore, sprinting at full speed towards the direction of the Matou Family.
On the other side, not long ago.
"Let's wipe out the Matou Family."
Faced with her proposal, Sella and Illya looked at each other in dismay.
"But it's daytime now..." Sella wanted to say something.
"So what if it's daytime?" Xia Yu narrowed her eyes. "I couldn't care less about that. Does the local Manager of the Spiritual Land even have the ability to cause trouble for me?"
"But the Matou Family also has a lineage of five hundred years, it won't be that easy... uh," Sella instinctively wanted to remind her about the Magecraft Workshop, but before she could finish, she remembered that their own Bounded Field, which had been passed down for thousands of years, was broken by this person in a single move.
"So, let's go attack the Matou Family." Xia Yu stood up and patted Illya's head. "We'll kill off a competitor first."
"So annoying, go by yourself," Illya turned her head away. "You can operate independently without me anyway, can't you?"