In his little corner of his workshop reserved for relaxation, the wielder of the 2nd True Magic, Kischur Schweinorg, sat on his expensive armchair in loungewear, with his legs propped up on an ottoman and munching on a tub of popcorn while switching channels on the floating screen in front of him that he set up to be connected to the Kaleidoscope.

One of them caught his eye.

"I hereby announce! Your self is under me, my fate(doom) is in your sword. In accordance with the beckoning of the…"

The young man looked to be pondering for a moment, then side-eyed the shield stuck on his arm.

"I'll allow it," the Wizard Marshal muttered with a pleasantly surprised expression, gesturing with a pointer finger for his Magic to let the connection the young man was trying to establish be created. He smiled at the enraptured expression of the Shield Hero as his crude ritual circle lit up.

People always think he's like a more sociopathic and omniscient version of a certain main character of a show with a police box, but in truth, this is the sort of intervention he liked best. The ones where the people try something out of their own initiative, and all he has to do is enable them.

~~o0o~~

When he put the Shield in the role of the Grail, what Naofumi didn't consider was that the Holy Grail and the Holy Shield were built for different purposes. While the first was made for enacting the Heaven's Feel ritual and automatically chose the most compatible Servant for the summoner, the second was made to house an extension of the Will of the World and it was the one consciously picking who got to use it. As such, the Spirit of the Shield found itself once again in the position of picking the person to summon - though this time not as its wielder, but someone to share the burdens of the Shield Hero.

By all accounts none of this made any sense, but it wasn't going to look a gift horse in the mouth.

The spirit looked between the people it would normally never get to choose between with stars in its metaphoric eyes: ones wielding magic, with specialized skills and strange esoteric powers: a gravekeeper who was slowly losing themselves to a king of a bygone era, a miracle girl whose body was made of swords, a half-empty woman that can see death, and a downtrodden witch fading away on the steps of a temple, among many others.

It was one of the hardest choices it has had to make so far, but it considered, deliberated, and then picked.

"Servant Archer. At your summons, I have come forth. I ask of you, are you my Master?"

The words spilled from her mouth as though on autopilot. It was likely akin to muscle memory, but it probably really was given how many times EMIYA, the nameless Heroic Spirit who she was possessing, has experienced summoning.

"Who are you?" blurted out the messy, dark haired young man in front of her.

"Were you expecting someone else?" Kuro asked coyly with a slight tilt of her head.

His puzzled expression lasted for another second before he shook his head and adopted a more serious look.

The Servant used that chance to sneak another look around. They were in the countryside somewhere in the middle of nowhere if the dirt roads were any indication and...what's with that girl with animal ears? So cute!

"My name is Naofumi Iwatani, and yes, I am your Master," the young man said stoically, holding up his left hand to Kuro, showing the red sigils.

The white haired girl only hummed in response. "And tanuki girl over there?"

Said girl gave a start as though waking up from a daze, but quickly composed herself.

"My name is Raphtalia," she introduced herself, rather stiffly, "And I am Naofumi-sama's sword!" she proclaimed, making the Servant raise an eyebrow. Was that a slight tinge of hostility in her voice?

However, she didn't get the opportunity to speculate further as a loud chirp interrupted her thoughts. Kuro looked down and saw a...bird? There was nothing outstanding about its white coloration, but something about its body proportions and the intelligence in its eyes made her hesitant in trying to put a label on its species.

"Ah, and that's Firo," Raphtalia introduced it nonchalantly.

Naofumi thankfully managed to put the staring contest with the strange bird to an end with a cough before it got weird.

"Right, right," the Servant said to herself, returning her attention to Naofumi, "Who do you want dead then, Master? What's the plan?" she asked with a toothy smile.

"Well..." her Master said thoughtfully at the same time as the girl gasped, "There are actually quite a few people I think this world would be better off without but that's not important right now," he went on, ignoring the glare the tanuki girl was giving him.

"What I want you to do is to check the corner of your vision for something and focus on it if it's there."

Kuro's brows furrowed, but followed the instructions. Within seconds, her eyes widened at the small symbol on the corner of her vision, and they widened even further at the game menu-like window that popped up.

[Name: Chloe von Einzbern]

[Class: Archer (Servant)]

[Lvl. 1]

[Equipment: Other-World Armor, Other-World Shroud]

[Skills: None]

Huh. It also showed that her stats were mostly middling except for the high Agility, which was accurate.

"What?!"

The last line however, was panic-inducing.

[Magic: None]

"Trace, on."

She quickly raised an arm and fired up her Circuits, tracing Kanshou in her right. Seeing no issue, she immediately dispelled it and traced the black bow and some arrows, a couple of them low-ranking Noble Phantasms. Picking up an arrow, Kuro overloaded it with prana until it shattered in her hands.

Weird. All of her magecraft seems to be in working order, so why does her Status show that she has nothing in the Magic category? Could it be that magecraft doesn't count becau-

"Naofumi-sama!"

Her racing thoughts were interrupted by the cry of the tanuki girl. Dispelling the projections, Kuro turned to see her Master taking a knee on the ground and supporting himself with one of his arms, panting and sweating.

Oh boy. It took, what? Tracing a handful of low-to-mid Rank Noble Phantasms? Looks like her Master isn't doing too good in the magical energy department.

~~o0o~~

"For the Nth time Raphtalia, I'm fine."

They were in the room of an inn, at a village that her Master explained was called Riyute.

"That magic water that old man gave us did the job. Remind me to pay him back for it later," Naofumi said in an exasperated tone, trying to get Raphtalia to stop fussing over him and glaring accusingly at the Archer.

Kuro stood aside at the window, gazing out at the medieval settlement.

"So let me get this straight: You, alongside three others, were summoned in a medieval fantasy world that works like a game to save it from a catasrophe, got stuck with a shield that won't let you hold any weapon, was framed for rape and shunned, and in spite of it all you and Raphtalia are the only competent ones out of all of the heroes because the rest of them still think it's a game," she summed up the main points.

"Yeah, that sounds about right," her Master replied bluntly.

"So you tried a summoning ritual you saw in an anime because you needed backup."

"Yup."

The Servant sighed, shaking her head. "Honestly, this all sounds like the plot of a manga or something."

"You're telling me?"

Outwardly, the girl was calm, taking it all in stride, but inwardly, she was shaken.

The last thing she remembered was...

Miyu's dying world.

The final battle against Darius.

The crying faces of Illya and Miyu.

Dying.

Yet, she was here once again, alive. Or summoned. Whatever this was.

"Okay, I'm in," at least for now. And if everything Naofumi told her was true, he seriously needed help.

"However," she said before her Master could really enjoy his sigh of relief, "Your prana pool is an issue. I'm assuming you can't really rely on that magic water because of the cost?"

Naofumi only grunted in response, rubbing his forehead. "The only solution I have is long term. It'll slowly be less of an issue as we level up."

Kuro smiled mischievously at this. "Well lucky for you, I do have a short-term solution."

"I'm not going to let you kill people for fuel," Naofumi stated evenly.

"What a knowledgeable Master I have. But no, that's not what I had in mind," she said with a roll of her eyes, "Basically, I can absorb magical energy from people through kissing."

A beat passed.

"I-I'm not going to let you kiss Naofumi-sama!" exclaimed Raphtalia with reddened cheeks, her tail all puffed up in agitation.

"Who said anything about kissing him?" Kuro brushed off the accusation smoothly, sauntering over to the brunette. "I'm already using his magical energy through our contract. I'm talking about you, little snack." She smirked salaciously at the shell-shocked tanuki girl, tilting her face up with a hand on her chin.

How odd. She has to make people look up at her? Normally Kuro was the midget.

A loud bang behind her interrupted her musings. Taking the cue, the Servant backed off Raphtalia, who has by now become reduced to a flushed, babbling mess.

She turned to face her Master, whose fist was still on the slightly cracked wall. An intense frown marred his face.

"Of course, I could just not. The other option however, is for me to go out in the town and get my fill from the villagers, but I doubt you want having a succubus in your party added to the list of accusations you're already facing," she explained with a wry smile.

"Tch," he spat as he looked to the side, his frown not abating.

The tense silence stretched on.

"I-I'll do it."

"Hm?"

If her tomato-red cheeks were any indication, Raphtalia had yet to completely recover from being introduced to the idea of kissing a girl, but the determination was visible in her eyes.

"Raphtalia, you really don't have to..." Naofumi began, but was cut off.

"We really need Archer-san's help, s-so we can't afford to be picky. But Naofumi-sama doesn't deserve to have people speak badly of him. I-f it's for Naofumi-sama, I'll do it. I'll k-kiss her."

"Seriously, you really don't..."

"It's fine, Naofumi-sama. I-it's just for now, right? We'll stop after we level up enough to not need it anymore."

Naofumi tried to talk her out of it again, but his attempts were rebuked with a shake of the tanuki girl's head. Seeing there was no way to make her back down, he sighed in exasperation and fixed the Servant with a ferocious glare.

"I'll let it go because I see there is no talking her out of this, but if I hear even one word of you abusing this situation..."

The Archer raised her hands in surrender. "Hai, hai. Cross my heart and hope to die, stick a needle in my eye. I may look young, but I promise I'll treat your daughter right, Master."

The dark-haired man only sighed again in response.

"How old are you, anyways?"

"I mean..." Kuro trailed off, placing a hand on her chin, thinking, "That's a difficult question. On one technicality, you can argue that I am just a few months old." It hasn't been that long since she came into being. "On another technicality, you can argue that I'm hundreds of years old." Counter Guardians like EMIYA, as a consequence of being contracted to Alaya were removed from the normal flow of time and deployed wherever and wherever they were needed, fighting and living (if it can be called that) forever in theory.

"On a practical level," the girl went on, unaware of her Master's pinched expression, "I am somewhere in my mid teens," she concluded.

"Isn't it fine?" Raphtalia interjected indignantly, "I may be technically ten, but I'm a big girl now. A-and it's not like I'm kissing a boy, so I won't get p-pregnant."

Kuro's head whipped around to Raphtalia, scrutinized the girl who looked like she was in her late teens, and then it was her turn to fix her grimacing Master with an incredulous glare.

"Explain."

~~o0o~~

AN: You know, I initially wanted to have Naofumi summon Medea. I thought she and Naofumi would have this thing going on where both of them are distrustful of each other at first and later realize that they're both people who have been betrayed, so it eventually turns into a "bickering old couple" kinda dynamic with Raphtalia pretending she's not treated like she's their kid even after Medea turns her hair blue as a joke.

(If someone's plot bunnies mobilize and hold them at gunpoint to write that premise because they read that, I am not sorry at all.)

But unfortunately, I had to differentiate between "What I would have fun reading" and "What I would have fun writing", so Kuro is who you get.