Outside the school, the clash between two archers was a symphony of whistling air and snapping wood.
From the rooftops of the affluent residential district to the industrial warehouses bordering Saint Shinomiya, two won moved like twin ghosts of the night.
Every few seconds, a streak of light would illuminate the darkness, followed by an answering spark as their projectiles collided in mid-air with surgical precision.
Of course, ordinary humans couldn’t see supernatural powers and battles, but that doesn’t an they remain unaffected.
If one of those arrows hit an unsuspecting human who couldn’t see supernatural phenonons, they would still be gravely injured, or worse, even die.
At this mont, the chase slowed down as Shiho Mira landed with cat-like grace atop a weathered wooden electric pole, her balance was perfect.
She looked down at Emi, who stood in the middle of a deserted intersection, her silver bow held loosely but ready.
The wind whipped Emi’s black scarf around her, the only thing moving in her otherwise statuesque stillness.
Mira lowered her wooden bow, her chest barely heaving despite the cross-city sprint.
"I have to know," she called down, her voice sharp and inquisitive. "Who was your master? You don’t hold the bow like a practitioner of Kyudo, and your breathing is unorthodox. Where did you receive your training?"
Emi tilted her head slightly, the silver moonlight reflecting in her vacant, emotionless eyes.
"None," she said simply. "I’m not really the sporty type. I prefer staying indoors."
"None?" Mira’s brow furrowed in genuine disbelief. "You’ve been matching my draw speed and trajectory for three kiloters. You’re intercepting my arrows while moving at a dead sprint. Is this purely natural talent?"
Emi shrugged, her expression as blank as a fresh sheet of paper. "I don’t know about talent. But I’ve never lost a match in an FPS ga. And even airsoft, laser tag, arcade shooters—it’s all the sa to . I see the target, I calculate the distance and the lead ti, and I click. My hand just follows what my eyes see."
Mira’s expression darkened, a flicker of genuine anger crossing her face. "You possess a gift that archers spend decades trying to achieve... and you compare it to video gas? What a pathetic waste. If you had an ounce of discipline, if you joined a real dojo, you could be competing on the international stage within a year. You could be a world champion."
"I have no interest in that," Emi said, her voice devoid of any ambition. "It doesn’t sound fun. Standing in a line, wearing a uniform, shooting at paper circles for hours? Sounds like a chore."
"Doesn’t sound fun?" Mira’s voice rose an octave. "Think about the honor! The prestige! If you reached the top, you would have fa, wealth, and the adoration of the entire country! You would be a national celebrity, a pinnacle of human achievent!"
Emi blinked, her gaze remains flat. "What a ridiculous thing to say. Are you telling that just because I’m good at sothing, I’m obligated to spend my life doing it? Even if I hate it?"
"Of course!" Mira snapped, her knuckles whitening on her bow. "To have a god-given talent and leave it rotting in an arcade is a sin against the self! You use your potential to build a legacy, to reach the absolute limit of what you can be. Once you are at the top, then you can have your fun. But until then, you are a tool of your own potential."
Emi sighed, a soft, weary sound. "I don’t agree. Seijirou taught many things, and one of them is that talent, wealth, and power are just tools to serve one’s own pleasure. They are ans to an end, not the end itself. If you say I have to do sothing I don’t enjoy just because I’m good at it... then that talent isn’t a gift, but a curse. It’s a leash that you’re holding on yourself."
The two girls stared at each other across a philosophical canyon.
To Mira, the "Eight Limb" of discipline, life was a mountain to be climbed, and every talent was a piton to be driven into the rock until the summit was reached.
To Emi, life was a playground, and talent was just the currency that bought her more ti on the slides.
"...I see," Mira said, her voice turning cold as the night air. "Then there is no more room for words. If you refuse to respect your potential, then I will simply have to shatter it."
Mira’s spirit energy bursts out and coalesced into a dense, dark-silver fog that slled of sea salt and ancient wood.
Behind her, the towering phantom of a samurai in ornate, heavy armor manifested.
He held a bow so large it looked like it was carved from a ship’s mast.
As the spirit rged with her, Mira was encased in a suit of dark silver samurai armor that didn’t hinder her movents.
Her wooden bow transford, glowing with a baleful, tallic light.
"This is my Karyoku," Mira declared, her voice echoing with the weight of a legend. "The manifestation of the legend of Minamoto-no-Tatomo. The hero whose bow was so powerful it took three n to string, and whose single arrow sank an entire ship. I have dedicated every waking second of my life to being a vessel for this power."
She drew back her string, and the air around her began to swirl into a localized vacuum. "Tell your na, girl. I would like to know the woman whose talent was greater than mine."
Emi remained motionless, as if she has no plans to fully summon her Karyoku.
She simply shifted her stance, her fingerless gloves tightening on her silver bow as her eyes locked unto Mira’s heart, her target.
"Itoshi Emi, just your average otaku," Emi whispered. "I have no interest in your archery, and even all that fa and glory. But, if you wanted to compete with , then I won’t lose."
With that, the two dissappeared.
Dozens of ters away, they appeared above rooftops and once again engaged in fierce archery competition.
The urban skyline of the 24th District was illuminated by a staccato of flashes as the duel beca even more intense.
And Emi, who was able to keep up with Mira, was now finding it hard to match her arrows blow for blow.
It feels like Mira was no longer just an archer, but had beco a living ballista! And her arrows weren’t re projectiles, but were localized distortion waves that humd with the weight of the sea.
"Co on! Use your Karyoku, if you don’t, you’re going to dir!" Mira shouted, her voice amplified by the spirit of Tatomo.
She unleashed a volley of ten arrows in a fan-shaped spread, each one whistling with enough force to puncture steel plating.
But Emi didn’t answer, she simply moved with a fluid, haunting silence, her body blurring as she leaped from a water tank to a billboard.
She fired back, but the dark silver resonance of Mira’s armor acted like a magnetic shield, completely deflective and impenetrable.
Emi clicked her tongue as she finally realized the gap. She won’t be able to beat Mira if she doesn’t use her Karyoku.
She landed on a rooftop, breathing heavily.
"You really know how to dodge." Said Mira, standing a few ters away from her.
Emi stood up straight, taking a deep breath, "I don’t want to get hit by your arrows. It looks like it will hurt a lot."
"...hmph. If you won’t stand still, then I’ll simply erase the space you’re standing in!" Mira declared.
She then planted her feet on the edge of the rooftop, her dark silver armor sparking as he drew the string of her massive bow back until the air around the arrow began to scream.
"Tatomo: Great Ship-Sinking Bolt!"
The arrow shot out like a spiraling drill of burning hot light.
Emi attempted to dodge, jumping into air, but the projectile seed to possessed a predatory intelligence as it curved, tracking her heat signature with relentless intent.
"Tch." Emi realized she couldn’t outrun it.
She spun 180 degrees in the air, manifesting a concentrated arrow of pure spirit energy to intercept it.
The collision was catastrophic.
Mira’s "Ship-Sinking Boly" was simply too powerful as it consud Emi’s spirit arrow, with the drill-like rotation of the light shattering Emi’s defense.
The explosion that followed in the night sky was blinding, a mushroom cloud of spiritual residue that briefly turned the night into day.
Mira lowered her bow, her breathing slightly labored as she watched the smoke, waiting for a falling body.
"A waste," she whispered. "A talent like that, extinguished before it could bloom."
But then, the smoke began to glow with the violent, roaring orange of a solar flare.
Mira’s eyes widened as the clouds parted as a shockwave of heat evaporated the moisture in the air.
Emi erged, descending slowly through the sky.
She was no longer wearing her black scarf; it had been replaced by a mantle of living fire.
Her silver bow had also transford into a heavy, ornate golden weapon that pulsed with the rhythm of a beating heart.
Behind her, the phantom of a regal, dark-skinned warrior appeared—a man with eyes like suns, holding a bow that felt as if it were the axis of the world.
"Gandiva, this is my Karyoku." Emi spoke, her voice carrying a dry, crackling heat. "The manifestation of the legend of Arjuna, The Awarded Hero of India."
Mira’s eyes widened, as soone who treat archery as her whole life, she had learned all great archers both in history and in myth.
And of course, she knew of the peerless archer who stood at the center of a world-ending war.
Why is a woman who claid to have no interest in the "honor" of the bow, actually manifested the soul of the greatest archer in Indian mythology!?
"Arjuna..." Mira whispered, a wry, painful smile touching her lips. "For soone who claid to not be interested in archery and actually make a contract with one of the greatest archers in mythology..."
Emi humd, her feet touching the rooftop of a house. "Well, he’s strong. And I needed power. Honestly, I was not expecting this. I wanted soone like Hassan-i Sabbah, so I don’t have to fight and I can just end fights as quickly as possible, you know."
"... Seriously, I can’t understand people like you."
Emi shrugs, "Seijirou said I’m a simple girl. You probably just like to complicate things."
"Maybe." Mira raised her bow one last ti, the silver light of Tatomo condensing into a single, final point at the tip of her arrow.
Truthfully, she was already exhausted, and her armor beginning to crack from the output was already proof of that exhaustion, "My body can only handle one more strike of this magnitude. Let’s not drag this out. One arrow to decide who is the victor."
"Agreed," Emi said, her golden bow erupting in flas that licked the sky. "My body is already starting to feel like it’s lting. This is why I don’t like to use this."
The world went silent.
The wind stopped.
The city lights seed to dim as the two girls poured every remaining drop of their spiritual essence into their bows.
"Tatomo: Great Ship-Sinking Bolt!"
"Agni Orcan!"
They released their arrows simultaneously.
The white drill of light and the hurricane of fire t in the center of the intersection.
For a heartbeat, there was a struggle—the light tried to pierce the heat, but the flas of Agni were absolute.
The "Great Ship-Sinking Bolt" was swallowed by the solar flare, the hurricane of fire expanding until it engulfed the entire street.
It caused a massive explosion where even the asphalt beneath them turned to glass.
When the fire dissipated, Emi stood alone, her Karyoku fading into the night. Her bodysuit was scorched, and she leaned heavily on her bow, her legs shaking from the feedback of using a god-level spirit.
She landed on the ground, and waked towards Mira who lay in the center of the street, her silver armor shattered and gone.
She was covered in soot and minor burns, but the final protection of her spirit had kept the flas from being lethal.
She coughed, a thin trail of smoke escaping her lips as she looked up at the stars. "Heh... I told you. Archery is your destiny. You just proved it by burning a legend to ash."
Emi looked down at her, her expression returning to its usual, bored neutrality. "Like I said, I still have no interest in making it a career. It’s too much work."
Mira let out a weary, genuine laugh, closing her eyes as the adrenaline finally left her system. "Is that so? Well... if you ever change your mind... co find at the Shiho dojo. I’ll show you a different kind of fun."
"...Okay," Emi replied after a short pause. "I’ll bring my ga consoles too, I’ll show you the fun of video gas."
"Heh, is that so? Very well, I’ll wait." With that, Mira closed her eyes, her energy spent.
Emi the looked toward the Saint Shinomiya auditorium, sensing the final confrontation was about to begin.
"Before that..." Emi looked around at the damages caused by their fight, "Seems like a massive gas leak happened here."
She shook her head, before sitting down besides the sleeping Mira as she looked at the night sky.
She had done her job.
The Archer of the Eight Limbs was down.
Now, she just wanted to go ho and sleep for a week.
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