I'm Not A Master, I'm A Director
Chapter 376: Dracula: "Ahhh—The Holy Grail—!!"
For Heroic Spirits, most Command Spells were something they could hardly bring themselves to like.
The reason was simple: aside from a very small number of enhancement-type commands, most Command Spells used by magi were inherently coercive.
The majority of Heroic Spirits were proud heroes. Being forcibly ordered around was, to them, a form of humiliation.
Especially since the commands magi issued with Command Spells were usually things the servants didn't want to do in the first place.
This kind of resentment was amplified to the extreme when facing a Ruler.
We're all Servants—why the hell do you get to order us around?!
However, this time was different.
This particular Command Spell did not provoke any hostility.
Heroic Spirits were, by nature, heroes who guarded human civilization. Slaying monsters, demons, evil spirits, rakshasas, and all manner of abominations was already part of their contract with the Counter Force.
If anything, due to the compulsory nature of the Command Spell, their abilities were actually boosted when fighting vampires.
Jeanne, Astolfo, Chiron, and the newly arrived Mordred quickly unified their positions, forming a dedicated raid party to exterminate the vampire.
"I'll provide cover," Chiron said calmly as he watched the monsters circling in the sky. "Ruler and Saber, make full use of your close-combat strengths."
"Understood, Archer."
"Roger~!"
Astolfo raised his hand enthusiastically and asked, "Teacher Chiron, what about me?"
Chiron jerked his thumb toward the mass of artificial vampire spawn.
"Your job is to make sure those guys don't interfere. Think you can handle that?"
Astolfo rubbed the back of his neck, not entirely satisfied.
"Clearing mobs, huh? Well, fine. Works for me."
"That thing is effectively immortal right now," Jeanne said, turning to Mordred. "We need to completely erase it with magical energy. Your Noble Phantasm is the only thing that can finish it off. You must protect yourself at all costs."
Mordred snorted irritably. "You're way too naggy."
"Mr. Shishigou, you'll activate the Noble Phantasm with a Command Spell at the right moment. No problem?"
Compared to the hot-headed Mordred, Jeanne clearly trusted Shishigou's judgment more, entrusting him with deciding the timing of the decisive blow.
"Then you—"
Before Jeanne could assign him a role, Amakusa spoke up on his own.
"—I'll grant those poor souls their final rest," he said gently. "Exorcising evil is a priest's duty, after all."
As he spoke, Amakusa drew his Black Keys and moved to stand beside Astolfo.
Jeanne raised no objection. At the moment, the priest was still perfectly disguised, with no cracks in his façade. Believing him to be an ordinary human, Jeanne didn't think Amakusa capable of confronting the vampire in the sky anyway.
"Then—operation, begin!"
At Jeanne's command, Astolfo was the first to move.
Mounted on his hippogriff, he soared into the night sky, then pulled a horn from his waist.
The horn rapidly expanded in his hands. When it grew large enough to envelop his entire body, Astolfo blew into it with all his might.
"▂▃▄▅▆▇██▇▆▅▄▃▂
▂▃▄▅▆▇██▇▆▅▄▃▂
▂▃▄▅▆▇██▇▆▅▄▃▂"
A demonic sound—somewhere between a dragon's roar and a divine beast's scream—shook the night sky.
[La Black Luna – Magic Flute That Calls Panic]
Among Astolfo's many Noble Phantasms, this was the one best suited for large-scale combat. It unleashed devastating sonic shockwaves upon everything within its range.
Legend had it that the good witch Logistilla had bestowed this Noble Phantasm upon Astolfo, and that it had once been used to scatter entire flocks of harpies.
Despite its low rank—utterly useless against true Heroic Spirits—it was more than enough to deal with these Dead Apostles created from homunculi.
Some of the physically weaker ones were reduced to drifting dust the moment the demonic sound washed over them.
"Damn it!"
Seeing his familiars being wiped out en masse, Dracula roared in fury, spreading his wings and diving toward the flying hippogriff.
"Don't even think about it!"
Chiron leapt onto the castle ramparts and drew his longbow, loosing ten arrows straight into the sky.
Under Chiron's superhuman control, the ten arrows curved along completely different trajectories, converging on the vampire from all directions and sealing off every possible escape route.
To be able to make arrows perform like this—Chiron's archery could only be described as art.
The audience watching this scene didn't even have time to cheer.
Everyone had been completely swept up by the tense, electrifying atmosphere of the film, so focused they barely dared to breathe—let alone eat popcorn or drink cola.
For a movie that was, by all accounts, a pure commercial popcorn blockbuster, the fact that no one was eating popcorn spoke volumes about just how immersed the audience was.
Of course, this did not include the Three Idiots of the Round Table.
At this very moment, those three clowns were waving banners and cheering loudly for Mordred.
"Go, Mordred! Take down that vampire!"
"Even if you're not our king, you now represent the honor of the Round Table! Charge!"
"Cut him down with your Noble Phantasm! Cut him to pieces!"
...
"Mordred, aren't you going to react at all?"
Semiramis kindly patted the red-faced Mordred on the shoulder, smiling teasingly.
"Just ignore them!" Mordred snapped.
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At the same moment Chiron launched his attack, Mordred and Jeanne synchronized perfectly and charged the vampire together.
The flawless coordination of the three Heroic Spirits left the vampire with no room to evade—offering his neck to the blade seemed to be his only option.
Unfortunately, their enemy was Dracula, a vampire who could not be judged by common sense.
The abilities found in vampire legends had been bestowed upon this monster in the form of concepts.
"Tch, he turned into mist!"
Arrows, spear, and sword passed straight through the vampire's body without inflicting even the slightest damage.
That wasn't all.
Dracula slipped his hand into the black cloak that blended seamlessly with the night, pulled out iron stakes one after another, and hurled them toward his enemies.
Empowered by the vampire's monstrous strength, the thrown stakes casually broke the sound barrier.
Though the Type-Moon world was full of phenomena absurd enough to send Newton clawing his way out of his grave and drifting through space, it still obeyed one fundamental rule:
Speed equals power.
Calling those iron stakes supersonic artillery shells would not have been an exaggeration.
"Tch—what a pain in the ass…!!"
Mordred stepped forward and knocked them aside with rapid swings of her sword.
Among the assembled Heroic Spirits, no one else possessed her combination of sheer strength and speed. At this moment, Mordred was unquestionably the team's main damage dealer.
Jeanne didn't lose to Mordred in raw power—but without using that Noble Phantasm, her advantage over Mordred was mainly that she was tougher.
But every ruler has their strengths and weaknesses.
While Mordred couldn't match Ruler Jeanne in defense, she clearly held the advantage when it came to raw offensive output.
As the unworthy child of King Arthur Pendragon, Mordred had grown up learning—and stealing—Arthur's techniques and combat skills.
She was, without a doubt, a once-in-a-generation prodigy.
Otherwise, she would never have earned a seat at the Round Table at such a young age.
"Come on!"
Mordred's armor might not rival Jeanne's in defensive rating, but it was still unquestionably heavy-duty.
Charging across the battlefield in that massive suit of armor, Mordred was like a tank equipped with a space shuttle engine.
Red lightning crackled across her entire body—rampant magical energy spilling outward.
For an ordinary Heroic Spirit, merely parrying Mordred's blade would be enough to induce crippling numbness.
"Come on! Let's make this fight even more intense!"
Her laughter carried madness, hatred, and a pure, burning love for battle.
All of those emotions fused into a flame-like passion, released across the battlefield through her magic.
Against the vampire's relentless barrage of iron stakes—like a torrential storm of needles—Mordred shattered them again and again with her knightly greatsword.
Compared to Spartacus and Frankenstein, the current Mordred looked far more like a true Berserker.
Unfortunately, no matter how overwhelming her presence was, the fact that she couldn't fly meant that against a vampire who controlled the skies, most of her effort had to go into defense. The few sword slashes she managed to launch were easily evaded by the airborne monster.
A battle was never about courtesy.
Once one side was forced into a purely defensive position, the other would relentlessly press the advantage.
In such a situation, holding out for too long inevitably led to a breakthrough.
"Ghn…!"
Mordred was already powerful enough—but even so, one of the countless iron stakes finally struck her thigh.
Carrying power on par with a Noble Phantasm, the stake tore through her armor and plunged into her muscle. The Red Knight's movements faltered for just a moment.
"Die!"
With nothing more than his brute, monstrous strength, the vampire sent Mordred flying.
A single claw strike was enough to launch her whole body into the wall.
The damage itself was minor, but faced with a vampire who had overpowered her with sheer arm strength alone, Mordred couldn't hide the shock in her heart.
She already fought like a beast, yet her opponent was even more monstrous.
Seeing that Mordred failed to tear herself free from the wall immediately, Dracula bared his fangs, intending to turn her into one of his own by draining her blood.
However, Jeanne intercepted him with her lance.
"Obsession… resentment… no—perhaps it should be called delusion," Jeanne declared sternly as she pointed her weapon at Dracula.
"You are neither magus nor hero now. You are no longer even worthy of being called human."
"You must be suffering tremendously in your current state," she continued coldly.
"Stop clinging to this world, monster. Disappear while you still can!"
Her words were merciless, yet they perfectly described the creature's condition.
His existence had been almost completely erased. Even his name—once infamous—had become as unfamiliar as that of a random passerby on the street.
Who am I?
What am I?
Those fundamental concepts that formed the basis of one's identity had already vanished entirely from the vampire's mind.
The Holy Grail.
That alone remained—the vampire's final anchor, his only obsession binding him to the world.
And so, even while being attacked from both front and back by Jeanne and Mordred, the vampire continued to roar between clashes.
"Hahahaha! I won't die! I can't be killed! Until I obtain the Holy Grail, I will never die!"
"Shut up already! I should've stuffed your filthy mouth with silver from the start!"
Mordred shouted as she parried Dracula's claws.
"Honestly, knowing you'd be fighting a vampire and not preparing any silver weapons is your fault," Li Ri'ang muttered under his breath.
But he quickly stopped complaining—the coordinated battle between Heroic Spirits unfolding before him was simply too spectacular.
Missing even a moment of it just to make sarcastic remarks would've been a terrible loss.
After transforming into a vampire, Dracula displayed the advantages of undead immortality and monstrous traits to their fullest. Whenever struck by arrows or slashed by blades, he would disperse into mist or transform into bats to evade the attack.
Then, seizing the opening, he would close in on Jeanne or Mordred and snap at them with his fangs.
If Jeanne hadn't been able to deploy her Noble Phantasm at lightning speed, this three-on-one battle would've ended long ago—with the outnumbered "Lu Bu" emerging victorious.
Even so, while Dracula did hold the upper hand in direct exchanges, when viewed from a broader perspective, the overall advantage still lay with Jeanne's side.
After all, all they needed to do was stall.
Vampires were creatures of the night. Once dawn broke and the sun rose, their power would plummet.
Even if sunlight didn't reduce him to ash, his strength would be greatly diminished, dealing with him then would be trivial.
The only problem was the Greater Grail.
This vampire's obsession with the Grail was far beyond normal. If he suddenly chose to abandon the fight and head straight for the Greater Grail instead…
"Hey, Brit!" Jeanne shouted to Mordred. "Keep him here—no matter what it takes, don't let him leave!"
"I told you not to order me around!"
Mordred's reply was as irritable as ever, but her body was far more honest than her words. She accelerated her attack rhythm, trying to pin the vampire in place.
To do so, she didn't hesitate to burn through vast amounts of magical energy. Even when the enemy dispersed into mist, she unleashed crimson lightning through Mana Burst, striking directly at the black fog and leaving the vampire with nowhere to escape.
"We can definitely win."
All three Servants fighting the vampire came to the same conclusion. It was only slight, but the enemy's regeneration speed had begun to lag behind their own recovery.
"Damn it!"
The vampire swept his enemies with a gaze full of hatred while continuing to lash out at the two knights in close combat—but every strike was blocked by Jeanne and Mordred.
Seizing the brief moment when all three combatants stalled, Chiron aimed an arrow directly at the vampire's head—
"Got you!"
However, without any warning—no sign at all—Chiron suddenly froze mid-draw. His expression twisted in pain as his knees buckled.
"This is… Assassin…?"
In that instant, Chiron felt himself grow terrifyingly weak.
The reason became clear as he looked ahead.
Standing there was Stheno, her eyes glowing a monstrous crimson.
"Ah!"
"Oh! Sh**t!"
Stheno's sudden appearance caused startled cries from many in the audience.
"Big sis, you scared them," Medusa said dryly.
Even knowing it was just a jump scare, Rider couldn't resist teasing her sister over the audience's reaction.
After all, she'd been "pampered" by her sister in far too many ways lately, and the stress had been piling up.
Now, seeing her eldest sister make herself look ugly on the big screen just to frighten people finally gave her a bit of emotional payback.
"Medusa, do you really like how I look right now~?" Stheno said, resting her chin on one hand and smirking.
"How about I dress like this every day and wake you up in the morning?"
"…Sister, I'm sorry."
"Too late."
Stheno snorted coldly.
Medusa tilted her head slightly.
"Big sister, when you dress this ugly… do you actually feel happy?"
"..."
Stheno hesitated for a moment, then said tentatively, "Then… how about we dress like this together and go wake Master up?"
"Achoo!"
Not far away, Shinji let out a loud sneeze.
◇◆◇◆◇◆◇◆◇◆◇◆
"So… she's become a thrall…"
Seeing Stheno's disheveled hair, elongated fangs, and glowing red eyes, Chiron immediately understood what had happened to her.
"Grr! Grr!" N
The moment Chiron was ensnared by Stheno's charm, the ground around him suddenly ruptured. Several homunculi-turned-Dead Apostles burst out from underground, swarming onto his immobilized body and sinking their teeth into him.
"Teacher Chiron!"
Astolfo, who had been clearing out the surrounding familiars to create space for Jeanne's group, immediately tried to rush over—but Chiron shouted him down.
"Don't come any closer!"
"But—!"
"Focus on your own task! Don't worry about me!"
Chiron's tone was unshakably resolute.
The strange sensations wracking his body, along with the overwhelming thirst for blood, made Chiron painfully aware that an irreversible change was taking place within him.
"Hmph! I refuse to become a monster like that Lancer!"
Shakily forcing himself upright, Chiron gathered every last ounce of strength and charged toward Stheno, wrapping his arms tightly around her.
"Red Faction's Saber! You know what to do!"
Ignoring the little girl in his arms who was biting and clawing at him, Chiron shouted toward Mordred.
"Tch! You asked for this yourself!"
Mordred's voice was as tsundere as ever. She raised her slightly trembling hands and pointed her knightly sword at Chiron.
"Teacher Chiron!"
Hearing Astolfo's cry, Chiron gave him a faint smile.
"Rider, you're the Black Faction's last Servant. Don't lose to those Red ones."
On the other side, Mordred—her magical energy fully charged—brought down her crimson sword toward Chiron.
"Clarent—!!"
Crimson starlight surged skyward like a raging tide, roaring toward Chiron, Stheno, and the surrounding Dead Apostles.
That dazzling red beam—brilliant enough to annihilate everything—captured everyone's attention. All eyes were fixed on the magnificent Noble Phantasm in stunned silence.
Yet among all those present, the calmest person was Chiron himself.
He lowered his head slightly and apologized to the little girl in his arms.
"My apologies, eldest sister of the Gorgons. You'll be leaving this world together with me."
"…Chi…ron…"
Just before being swallowed by the red light, Stheno's eyes seemed to regain their clarity. Her lips parted slightly, silently forming words no one could hear.
The earth thundered.
A pillar of crimson light pierced the heavens, linking sky and land, and bloomed upon the horizon like the most beautiful flower of rebellion.
Black Faction — Archer · Chiron & Assassin · Stheno, make their exit.
"Ah… Master, you really love pulling this kind of emotional scene."
Inside the theater, Jeanne complained softly while holding Shinji's hand.
"Almost every movie you make has something like this. Are our tears really that easy to trick out of us?"
"Aren't they?" Shinji teased—and immediately got his hand twisted hard.
Jeanne suddenly realized that holding Shinji's hand had its advantages. Moments like this made it very convenient to teach him a lesson.
"Well~ emotional beats like this are mandatory in commercial films," Shinji said.
"Only when the audience is moved can they form a connection with the characters."
The storyline involving Chiron and Stheno had been inspired by Ushiwakamaru and Benkei's arc in FGO Part 1, Chapter 7.
That said, the recreated scene still fell a bit short in terms of impact.
It wasn't that Shinji couldn't have done better—but in a movie with a runtime of less than three hours, the time available to develop supporting characters was simply too limited.
In films where even side characters' screen time has to be measured with a stopwatch, it's only natural that their emotional buildup sometimes feels insufficient.
At the very least, Shinji had managed to convey what he wanted to express. Judging from Jeanne's reaction, Chiron's portrayal as a righteous character was fairly successful.
And that was enough.
◇◆◇◆◇◆◇◆◇◆◇◆
While Mordred was giving Chiron and Stheno their "salvation", Dracula seized this rare opportunity to escape the battlefield.
The moment the crimson pillar of light rose into the sky, Dracula knew it was over for Archer and Assassin.
With that, aside from the specially summoned Ruler, only a handful of Servants remained in this Holy Grail War:
Red Faction's Assassin, Caster, and Saber; Black Faction's Rider; and himself—no longer fully human, nor entirely monster.
This already met the minimum requirements to activate the Holy Grail.
Since that was the case, there was no reason to continue tangling with Ruler. Wouldn't it be far better to skip the process and activate the Grail directly?
His goal—his obsession—had always been the Holy Grail. Creating familiars and killing Servants were nothing more than steps along the way.
Inside the castle, the bats swirling through the air reverted back into vampire form. Staggering slightly, he rushed toward the deepest part of the fortress.
"Almost there…"
Passing through corridor after corridor, the vampire finally stopped before a massive door.
Beyond it lay what he had long desired—the omnipotent wish-granting device.
"Just a little more… and my wish will be fulfilled."
Dracula muttered to himself, his eyes blazing with fanatic fervor.
Without hesitation, he pushed open the door and raised his head toward the object glowing blue-white at the center of the chamber—
The Greater Grail of Fuyuki.
"Ahhh~~ the Holy Grail~~"
The vampire let out a Gin-like moan of reverent admiration as he stepped forward, reaching out to touch the omnipotent vessel.
"AAH—!"
A scream of agony tore from his throat.
A Black Key had pierced his foot, pinning him firmly to the floor.
"So this is where you hid it."
A faintly mocking voice echoed from behind him.
"Darnic Prestone Yggdmillennia. Your journey—and your ambition—end here."
"Who are you?!"
Hearing footsteps behind him, Dracula reflexively turned around.
Standing in the doorway was a dark-skinned young man, wearing a gentle smile.
"No—! That's impossible! How could it be you?!"
The vampire shrieked, the boy's face awakening memories long buried in the depths of his mind.
He had seen this youth before, sixty years ago, in the Holy Grail War of Fuyuki City.
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