I'm Not A Master, I'm A Director
Chapter 372: When the British Knight and the French Saint Ride in the Same Car
The scene of Mordred and Kairi Shishigou that the Empress was watching was, naturally, nothing more than a smokescreen Shinji had prepared for the audience.
After all, the only person the Empress truly trusted and entrusted everything to was her Master—Amakusa.
That said, her decision to keep an eye on Mordred team wasn't entirely without reason. Mordred and Shishigou's cautious, even suspicious, attitude toward her had, in a way, also served as a subtle misdirection aimed at Jeanne.
The poor JK Saint had no idea she was already being played like a fiddle. Upon learning of the tragedy that had occurred in the town of Trifas—the collateral damage caused by Spartacus's self-destruction—Jeanne hastened her steps toward the battlefield.
Her first destination after arriving was, of course, the plaza where the fiercest fighting had taken place.
Meanwhile, Mordred and Shishigou had also sensed that chaotic, crackling mass of magical energy the night before. But having already chosen to act independently, they had no intention of rushing headlong into that mess.
Still, once daylight came, the two of them decided to investigate the battlefield.
After all, Shishigou was a necromancer—who knew what kind of information he might be able to dig up?
And besides, if they happened to find a Black faction Master who was barely clinging to life, that would be hitting the jackpot.
Command Spells were precious things. No Master in their right mind would ever complain about having too many.
At the same time, Astolfo—who had been blown away by Spartacus—woke up and also chose to return to the battlefield, hoping to see if anyone on his side had survived.
Thus, driven by different goals yet heading to the same destination, the Red faction, the Black faction, and the Ruler class converged—by an absurdly convenient coincidence (and the needs of the story)—at the edge of the massive crater Spartacus had carved into the ground.
And, as fate would have it, Astolfo ran into a man calling himself "Kotomine Shirou" during his search.
"Hey, don't attack! I'm not some suspicious guy!"
With Astolfo pointing a sword at him, Amakusa could only offer a French-style military salute to show respect for Astolfo's homeland.
"Pfft—"
Seeing Amakusa's flustered expression on the big screen, Li Ri'ang almost lost it.
Still, when he heard the surname the man used as his alias, Li Ri'ang's eyebrows twitched upward slightly.
"His surname is Kotomine?"
As everyone knew, the name Kotomine carried special meaning in the Fate universe. After all, the ultimate human antagonist in both Fate/Stay Night and Fate/Zero bore that very surname.
However, unlike Kotomine Kirei—the mapo-loving priest who practically screamed "I'm evil" at first glance—this Kotomine Shirou wore a gentle expression and a warm smile. Aside from being a little timid, he fit the public's ideal image of a priest far better.
But the similarities between Kotomine Shirou and Kotomine Kirei didn't stop at their surname.
Both claimed to be overseers dispatched by the Church to oversee this Holy Grail War.
"So… is this the 'good guy' version of Kotomine Kirei?"
Watching Amakusa put on his harmless, honest act, nearly everyone in the audience—including Li Ri'ang—found themselves thinking the same thing.
After all, the five-person group shown riding together in the preview had now gathered around the crater. The so-called "main cast" lineup was complete.
And if he was part of the protagonist group, then surely he couldn't be a bad guy… right?
Amakusa's face—so similar to Shirou's and radiating sincerity—gave him an excellent first impression with the audience.
That said, compared to the warm, friendly atmosphere of the preview's first scene, the current situation was anything but harmonious. If nothing else, it was downright tense.
"Aren't I supposed to be the overseer of this Holy Grail War?" Jeanne demanded.
Amakusa, however, remained calm.
"That was the Grail's own decision, wasn't it? I was sent by the Church. If I'd known you were coming, I'd never have come to such a dangerous place—even if it killed me."
"Well, if you came, you'd probably die anyway," Shishigou Kairi interjected darkly.
Amakusa shrugged, taking it as his answer.
Jeanne, however, refused to let the matter drop.
"If you're an overseer, then where is your base?"
"This place has long since been the territory of the Yggdmillennia family. Where would a Church even set up a base here?"
Amakusa answered bluntly, without the slightest attempt to dodge the question.
"If you were truly appointed by the Church, I don't believe the Church wouldn't have coordinated things with the Yggdmillennia family first."
At that moment, Shishigou cut in again.
"Saint, they've been forcing their way into other people's business for ages. The Church pulling something like this isn't exactly a first. As a Saint, you should know that better than anyone."
Jeanne fell silent for a moment. Then she turned to him.
"Red Saber's Master… whose side are you actually on?"
"Hmm…" Shishigou tapped his temple with the barrel of his gun and replied,
"Whichever side has better material for sarcastic commentary next, I guess."
"I like this guy," Li Ri'ang thought to himself.
He suddenly realized that a rough-edged, delinquent-like character such as Shishigou looked far cooler on the big screen than he had expected.
On the screen, the five-person group's back-and-forth finally came to a pause.
That was because Amakusa provided Jeanne with a piece of crucial information:
The Black faction's Master—the head of the Yggdmillennia family—intended to turn the entire town into a city of vampires in order to obtain the Greater Grail in its complete form.
Astolfo, once a Servant of the Black faction, corroborated this based on what he knew. He explained to Jeanne that the Black side truly did have the means to pull something like that off.
Black Lancer, Vlad III, possessed a Noble Phantasm that could transform him into a vampire. Moreover, the Yggdmillennia castle housed a large number of homunculi created through magecraft.
If the Archduke were to turn himself into a vampire, infect the homunculi within the castle, and then release them all at once, turning the town into a full-blown Resident Evil scenario overnight was far from impossible.
Shishigou Kairi also backed this up with rumors he'd heard within the magus community.
Darnic Prestone Yggdmillennia, he said, was absolutely the kind of man who would do anything for the Grail.
Although Jeanne's intuition as a woman told her that something felt off, all the information presented to her lined up neatly.
On top of that, the very reason the Greater Grail had summoned her as Ruler was because this Holy Grail War posed a threat to humanity. If an entire town were to be overtaken by vampires, that would unquestionably qualify as a disaster.
In the end, Jeanne decided to take her newly acquainted companions to have a "proper talk" with the head of the Yggdmillennia family.
If you wanted to conduct a Holy Grail War properly, that was one thing. But the moment you tried to spice things up with mass slaughter, the referee would step onto the field—and start throwing punches.
As for the highly suspicious priest before her, since her Ruler class skill True Name Discernment hadn't activated, that at least meant he wasn't a Servant.
'I'll trust him for now… I don't see any immediate problems,' Jeanne thought.
Narrowing her eyes, she gave Amakusa a final warning before leaving.
"I'll be watching you."
"Understood," Amakusa replied readily.
However, at the moment the camera lingered on his smiling face, the background music suddenly rose in pitch, filling the scene with an uneasy tension.
"Hmm… this guy isn't actually a good person, is he?"
Li Ri'ang muttered. "Figures. Masters with the surname Kotomine are never good news."
Even though Amakusa's smile hadn't changed at all, that final shot still left Li Ri'ang with a bad feeling.
"Don't tell me this Shirou is going to pull a last-minute betrayal like Kirei did? That'd just be Fate/Zero all over again."
What Li Ri'ang didn't know was that, in a sense, he'd hit the nail right on the head.
He was correct that Kotomine Shirou would end up betraying the group—but he had no idea that Kotomine Shirou himself was, in truth, the Heroic Spirit known as Amakusa Shirou Tokisada.
Still, being wrong didn't really matter. After all, Shinji had deliberately arranged for Jeanne's True Name Discernment to fail, all to mislead the audience.
As for why Jeanne's attempt had failed, the credit naturally went to Red Caster—William Shakespeare—who had seized upon a loophole in her skill.
True Name Discernment allowed Jeanne, upon encountering a Servant, to automatically uncover their true name, class, and general performance parameters.
However, the flaw in this skill was that if the target possessed an innate ability or Noble Phantasm that concealed their true name or attributes, the outcome would be decided by a Luck check.
And Shakespeare's personal skill, Enchant, granted to him by virtue of being a writer, allowed him to bestow powerful enhancements upon others—or upon important items they possessed.
Put simply, it let him slap extra "buffs" onto his teammates to strengthen them in specific ways.
Given the "rock-solid friendship" between England and France over the past few centuries, Shakespeare didn't even need the Empress to ask. Messing with Jeanne's mental state was something he'd happily do on his own.
Jeanne, huh? I've already written all kinds of dark history about this French country girl—digging one more pit for her is nothing!
Let's do it!
Thus, when Shakespeare helped Amakusa create a "trait" that concealed his true name, the situation became a direct Luck contest between Jeanne on one side, and Shakespeare and Amakusa on the other.
Unfortunately for Jeanne, her Luck rank was C, while both Shakespeare and Amakusa were B.
Luck was easily the most mysterious of the six core parameters of a Heroic Spirit.
Other stats—Strength, Agility, and the like—were straightforward. You got what you paid for.
If one Servant had Strength A and another had Strength B, the gap between them would be clearly reflected in combat.
Luck was different.
You couldn't tell at a glance whether someone was lucky or not—unless, of course, they were Lancer.
Luck only mattered when a check actually came into play.
This led to Luck's second crucial feature:
It doesn't need to be high—just higher than the other guy's.
If your Strength was only one rank above your opponent's, they could still fight you to a standstill and not lose by much.
But Luck didn't work that way. One rank higher was still higher. As long as you beat the other party, you won the check.
That was why Luck, despite being the most inconspicuous of the six parameters, often turned out to be absolutely critical.
Leaving aside Jeanne's failed True Name Discernment, take Cu Chulainn's multiple sure-kill thrusts that somehow never managed to kill anyone—his pitiful E-rank Luck was practically dancing the flamenco there.
Of course, Shinji wasn't about to explain these number-heavy mechanics in such detail within the movie itself. On screen, it would simply be stated that Shakespeare had helped Amakusa block True Name Discernment.
All the finer details would be reserved for the setting materials released afterward.
"It can't be helped," Shinji said smugly. "Movies have a runtime limit. I have to serve the plot."
Seeing the self-satisfied look on his face, Jeanne retorted irritably,
"I think the real reason is that this way the setting book will sell better, right?"
"How dare you utter such slander?"
Shinji replied with exaggerated shock. "It's not just the setting book—I'll write it into the official novelization too. How could you say it's only for selling setting materials?"
Meanwhile, on the big screen, the "petition delegation" Jeanne had assembled was already setting out from the town toward the Yggdmillennia castle.
Although she didn't have a great impression of Amakusa, given his extensive knowledge of modern society, the Saint could only begrudgingly allow him to join them.
The audience, on the other hand, was far more receptive to Amakusa.
Aside from people like Li Ri'ang—who were exceptionally well-read and suspicious by nature—most viewers held a fairly positive impression of him.
There was no helping it—good looks were justice.
Amakusa wasn't the kind of devastatingly handsome, gods-and-men-alike-offended beauty like Diarmuid, nor was he the sort of dangerously feminine type like Astolfo that even men had trouble resisting. Still, he was undeniably good-looking.
Add to that his current "kind big brother next door" personality, and charming a batch of fangirls was effortless.
Several female viewers sitting near Alice were precisely that batch.
"Ooooh, the male lead is actually pretty handsome~"
"I think a rough, rugged man like Shishigou has more appeal."
"That guy called Kotomine Shirou isn't bad either. His smile looks really sincere~"
"Yeah, he feels like a dependable big brother type."
…
Alice had long since grown used to this sort of fangirling.
There was no helping it—whenever a new handsome guy appeared in a Fate story, this was always how they reacted.
These girls switched crushes almost as fast as those otaku guys who changed their 'wife' every four months.
After silently sneering at these shallow, face-value-only girls in her heart, Alice refocused her attention on the movie.
'So let me get this straight… a world-saving squad made up of a chocolate-loving Saint, a necromancer who looks like a street thug, a tsundere single-ponytail daddy's-girl, a cross-dressing pretty boy who's prettier than most girls, and a good-guy priest?'
Honestly speaking, aside from Shishigou—an experienced mercenary—every other member of this team was more absurd than the last.
'Can a lineup like this really defeat the final boss?'
Already fully immersed, Alice began to worry about the five people sharing that car.
◇◆◇◆◇◆◇◆◇◆◇◆
At least in the beginning, everything went smoothly.
They were driving through the town in broad daylight, sticking to relatively busy roads.
Under the unspoken rules of the Holy Grail War, this counted as a ceasefire period.
The group's mood was relaxed, and they chatted constantly as they got to know one another better. You couldn't exactly call their exchanges harmonious—but they were lively enough to count as verbal sparring.
Most of it stemmed from the relationship between Mordred and Jeanne.
To emphasize Mordred's reckless, hot-headed personality, Shinji had given her a "daddy issues" attribute—but in the movie, her attitude toward Jeanne wasn't the affectionate clinginess some might expect. Instead, she went all-out with the trash talk.
Thus, the audience was treated to the sight of Mordred relentlessly firing verbal artillery at Jeanne from the back seat, complete with regional insults.
Naturally, Jeanne wasn't about to indulge a bratty child. Having spent her entire life opposing England, how could she possibly lose to an Englishwoman in a battle of words?
Between the two of them, they practically ran through every British joke and French joke they could think of, giving even viewers who'd never watched Yes, Prime Minister a clear understanding of just how "friendly and harmonious" Anglo-French relations really were.
"When we French fall into the water, we just shout for help. When you British fall in, you go: 'Excuse me, terribly sorry to bother you, but might I trouble you for a moment to ask whether you'd mind helping me out of the water? Apologies for the inconvenience.'"
"Oh? I've heard that modern French people don't even dare dream about going to Waterloo."
"In other countries, people say 'enjoy your meal' before eating. Only you British start by solemnly saying 'don't mind us.'"
"These days, the French—"
…
In the car, Amakusa and Shishigou exchanged bitter smiles. They were beginning to realize that letting Jeanne and Mordred ride together might have been a mistake.
Only Astolfo—the adorable mascot of the group—remained innocently cheerful. He seemed completely oblivious to the fact that the two ladies were actually arguing, and instead thought they were simply showing how knowledgeable they were about each other's countries.
"You two know so much~ That's amazing~"
Astolfo flashed his cute little fang-like canine tooth, smiling brightly.
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