"A snake can be deadly and venomous, but not as deadly and venomous as a traitor" -Prajjval Tiwari

EMIYA then dryly chuckles, saying "I thought returning to the counter force would finally allow me to stop looking at you. Turns out, it was just a short respite before I get to look at your annoying face once more."

"The feeling's mutual... Archer. Now what do you want from me? Or did you just call me here to make fun of me?"

"Like I'd wanna even do anything remotely close to that. The last thing I want to do is see you once more. However, I do have one thing to say to you."

"Yeah?"

Shirou was going to say something else to spite Archer but decides to hold his tongue, knowing that despite his cynical, snarky exterior, he is still his alternate future self. So, if he has something else to say aside from a sarcastic or spiteful comment, it's most likely important.

"Your fellow heroes, aside from Rin of course, they make me sick."

"I know... Motoya-"

"I don't just mean that Mordred looking scumbag that Rin suplexed. I mean all of them."

"Aside from that bit with Rin, what do you mean?"

"I knew you were foolish Shirou Emiya, but to think your stupidity was this deep. I don't know if you see it or you are just ignorant."

"Stop with the crap Archer. Spill it."

"You're fellow heroes see this world as nothing more than a game. Something you no doubt would've if you didn't see the shield hero's problem which hits quite close to home. Doesn't it? Anyways, you're regaining conciousness, so the last bit of advice I can give to you would be this, make them see the world as it is. Not what they want you to see."

"Wait!"

Shirou then gasps awake as the woman from earlier stood in front of him, alongside a gathered crowd. Shirou then groggily says "What... Wh-where did he go?"

The woman then breaths a sigh of relief, saying "Oh thank goodness you're okay sir hero! B-but if you're asking where the thief went, your efforts apprehended the scumbag."

'Not the "he" I was thinking off, but okay.'

"N-no, I mean, did you see the bow hero anywhere?"

"Wait, Sir Bow hero was with you? Then... No, I didn't."

"I... see..."

So, after all that, the four regroup as planned at the door of the blacksmith's shop and then set out for the outside once more. They then went and did the usual hunting, now even including slightly higher level creatures like porcupines and such. However, today, Naofumi had something special in mind.

While they were walking around, noone realizes that Naofumi was leading somewhere deeper into the trees than usual. Raphtalia is the first to notice, saying "M-master? Where are we going? This isn't our usual hunting grounds."

Naofumi turns to her with a smile, saying "This time around, I was hoping to mix things up a bit. Seeing as how our normal hunting grounds was getting a bit stale and the fact we've been getting the same old things already. I was hoping to possibly try and get stronger faster by taking on things that are slightly stronger." RiN then mutters out, "Real risky there Iwatani."

After they set up base camp, the quad then begins their hunt. Within this part of the shrubbery, the creatures they encountered were dog sized brown spider-like creatures, small wolf-like monsters with four eyes and a surprising amount of the egg-like creatures.

Naofumi sees how these creatures improved his skill in cooking, but when he asked to check Shirou's cooking skill, he was shocked to say the least.

Basically, it was at two whereas his was a ten by now. Meaning that that divine skill of cooking was nothing augmented by this world's levelling system. Those were honest to goodness skills learnt from years of experience. Eventually however, things started to not feel right. The first to pick up was Raphtalia's sensitive animal ears.

Out of nowhere, Raphtalia suddenly stops walking, and says "M-master? D-did you hear that?" making Naofumi, Shirou and Rin stop walking. Suddenly, out of the bushes, a big red snake lunges out with Naofumi barely blocking with an "AIR STRIKE SHIELD!", narrowly avoiding getting bit.

But it was an unrelenting one, as it uses the momentum from the strike to jump back into the shrubbery. After a few more strikes, it soon found out Airstrike shield has limited movement, so the snake then bluffs a strike before charging towards Raphtalia.

Naofumi wasn't fast enough, so Rin was the one to save her instead, chucking a random spell card at it. The spell card then explodes into a burst of wind which launches the creature back.

Suddenly four other snakes come out of the wood works and start charging at them. In response to this new, overwhelming force, the trio then forms a defensive circle around Raphtalia. Naofumi then hisses out, "Dammit, I shouldn't have gone way over my head. I'm sorry for endangering everyone like this."

Rin sighs before saying "Well there's no use drowning in self pity. Here's the plan, Shirou and I will take on-" before she could finish her sentence, a snake then dives down from a nearby tree and into their midst making them jump back to dodge.

Now they were broken up, three snakes per pair. On Shirou and Rin's side, Shirou was able to hold off the snakes by himself with the mundane swords he projected. Rin however, was struggling to land strikes as they either land too slowly or werr dodged by the fast reptiles.

However, her presence in the battle alone meant the snakes weren't entirely focused on Shirou. On Naofumi and Raphtalia's side, Naofumi is just about able to block the strikes. However, due to Raphtalia not being that fast in striking still, neither sides were actually capable of doing damage.

It feels like, for five minutes, the battle was going to a be a slow battle of attrition, until-

*crash*

Rin narrowly evades a bite from one of the snakes only to be slammed into a tree unconscious due to a stray tail strike. The three snakes then start to overpower Shirou, launching him backwards with consecutive strikes.

Due to the force of all three bearing down on him with no distractions, he soon finds himself without a weapon. He is then whips back only to land above a tree log. Before one of them could finish him off, he then rolls sidewards, coincidentally making the snake lodge it's fangs into the tree log he fell on. Using the opportunity he then grabs a rock, bashing it in the head with a rock, stunning it. However, since the rock was not a weapon he created, the damage was limited.

He then thought to himself "At least they're not minding Rin for now. But these mundane iron swords I have are just not cutting it. I need something lighter... faster... better. I need-"

He could swear his mind blank out as he sees himself within the Unlimited Blade Works once more. Archer then says to him "Come here to unlock our noble phantasm?"

"I have no time to play games Archer! Rin's in danger!"

"Fine, a quick sample of Kanshou and Bakuya then! I swear, I'll find a way to get there on my own if anything happens to Rin."

Shirou then opens his eyes, and, as if no time had passed, the snakes seemed to have been stopped in midair for a brief second, more than enough for Shirou to dodge then fire off his circuits, imagining his bread and butter swords as a timer appears above him called "Free Trial". He swerves to the left, dodging the snakes as they lunge at him.

Green lightning then begins surging all around him as his prana circuits began to flare up. He then utters his go-to chant.

"Trace on." as the legendary weapon screen appeared in front of him. He sees the unconnected line to a pair of black and white swords and, as if overriding a computer, forces the screen to unlock his chosen weapons by reaching into an option that says "Use free trial?"

"Yes"

His swords-no, his noble phantasms then began forming within his hand as the timer, of one hour, begins ticking down. Suddenly, as the snakes attacked, he intercepted with still forming motes of light.

*clang*

*clang*

*clang*

*clangclangclangclang*

It then transformed into the twin swords that culminated the love between the legendary blackmsiths Gan Jiang and Moye. The legendary twin falchions of Yin and Yang, Kanshou and Bakuya appeared in his hands.

He feels his stats raise as he suddenly went from barely being able to keep up with the snakes to just about outclassing them. Each blow not only connected, but he even starts to push them back due to the snakes starting to dodge after seeing one of them have their spiked tail get lopped completely off by the twin blades.

After the snakes back off, Shirou is given a bit of a breather. He then realizes that simultaeneously unlocking and projecting B ranked phantasms left him with 1/16th his mana bar. Not only that, but the damage these weapons were supposed to be able to dish out, for weapons meant against monsters, wasn't exactly as powerful as it should be.

Nonetheless, he then decides to finish things before this momentary advantage disappears. He then goes all out against the snakes, using 1/2 of the prana he had left to do a pseudo mana burst to tackle the snake into a slash attack, lopping off two heads in one fell swoop.

He then faces the third which then fkees back into the bushes. Meanwhile with the other two, Naofumi was currently busy fending off the other three while Raphtalia was scared shizless behind him.

"Raphtalia! I can't hold on much longer! On the count of three, I will pin them into the floor. Deal the finishing blow alright?!"

"B-but! I-urk!"

Raphtalia's slave crest then sparks up, punishing her due to her disobedience.

"B-but they might escape w-when I stab them."

Seeing this, Naofumi then says "If you can't trust yourself then trust in me. Have I really let anything hit you up to this point?"

"N-no, but that's b-because-"

"Don't doubt in me, in this shield. If you really believe I am the shield hero, if you really believe I can help protect everyone from the wave then trust me on this! So do you?"

"Y-yes!"

"Good, now here's your chance!"

He then changes his shield into the rope shield and casts airstrike shield, crushing two underneath it, while trapping the third one underneath his shield, digging into it's scales.

Raphtalia then runs at the one underneath his shield and slashes down on it, beheading it on a white ring of exposed flesh on it's neck area. However, the two others then slip out of the airstrike shield, and lunge at Raphtalia. She froze from fear, and closed her eyes, awaiting the venomous maw of the two snakes.

"Like hell!"

When she opened her eyes, she two balloons biting down on the neck of the snakes, pinning them into the floor. Apparently, since Naofumi couldn't get there fast enough, he decided to use the balloons as throwing weapons. Rin was right, there WAS a use for these things, aside from them gumming on his body being sort of relaxing that is.

"Raphtalia! Now!"

She then charges and kills the downed snakes. However, due to the sheer force she had to out into the strikes, she shattered her dagger. Granted, these were mediocre ones. Naofumi then came and picked up the balloons and let them bite him again, placing some sort of trail mix in their mouths to keep them alive as sort of pseudo pets. Naofumi then pets Raphtalia's head and says "Well done, Raph-chan. You did well. Thanks for trusting me."

After the adrenaline was gone, Raphtalia then fell to her knees and muttered incomprehensibly. They then went over to an unconcious Rin and exhausted Shirou.

Meanwhile within Rin's mind, she was currently walking around in the Throne of Heroes wherein she sees Archer sitting. He then stands up, and before she could say anything, says "Hurry up master, wake up and install Saber's card. More of those snakes are coming up and frankly, you four are still too ill prepared for this swarm even with me giving Shirou Emiya a free trial of my favored swords."

Saber then appeared and said "Finally! Some actual action- I mean... use me well master."

"Rin? Looks like you're going to wake up soon, remember to take care. Especially the idiot." Archer said while smiling like he did at the end of the grail war, a stark contrast to how he acts towards his past self.

Artoria looks at Archer, hugs him and then says "See you later... EMIYA-kun..." before running back to Rin, making Rin confused. "Oi Saber, what's up with that?"

"It's... a long story. I'll tell you when we have the time alright? But for now, are ready?"

"Do I have a choice?"

"Alas, you do not, Master."

Meanwhile, Naofumi and Raphtalia then began to approach Shirou and Rin and said "Guys, come on. We have to head back already." Shirou, with his reminaing strength, then said to Naofumi "We need to run!"

"Huh? Wh-"

"M-master, there is more hissing. We need to hurry. Now!"

Suddenly, a swarm of ten more snakes appears. But as they were about to hit Naofumi, Rin's eyes open, as a powerful wave of mana explodes outwards, knocking the serpentine foes away.

After the light dies down, Rin was seen standing, but things seemed different about her. Namely, her clothes have swapped to the one's Artoria wore last time, fused with her own. The color scheme became white, red and blue and her hair became a blonde twin tail with Artoria's ahoge present. Rin picked up Shirou who, by this point, was just about barely awake. Shirou then mutters out "R-rin? Is that you?" to which she replies with "Yes... And no... Anyways, let's go!"

Rin, with the saber install then beckons Naofumi and Raphtalia to follow her. She then grabs on to all three then uses Mana Burst, launching them across the woods.

"HOLD ON!" Rin shouts making everyone hold on to her harder with Naofumi also using an Airstrike shield to keep Shirou and Raphtalia from slipping away.

To be continued...