I'm Not A Master, I'm A Director
Chapter 466: Jeanne — Shinji, Taste Justice from Above!
Enkidu had no idea that Jeanne had completely immersed herself in the role. He simply continued fulfilling his part as Black Jeanne by increasing the intensity of his attacks.
"I have no idea what you're talking about!" Black Jeanne roared as black flames erupted around White Jeanne, surrounding her in a ring of fire. "I'm the real one! You're nothing but an incomplete—"
"Witch of Dragons!"
Relying solely on her Magic Resistance, White Jeanne charged straight through the wall of flames.
"I will defeat you!" she shouted at her black counterpart.
"What a joke!"
Their banners clashed once more.
Taking advantage of the opening, Black Jeanne drove a punch square into White Jeanne's face.
White Jeanne didn't dodge.
Instead, she met the punch head-on, slamming her forehead violently into Black Jeanne's face.
Whether Black Jeanne or White Jeanne, the metal helmet protecting the front of their faces was one of Jeanne's trademark pieces of equipment.
This time, White Jeanne turned that helmet into a weapon.
Critical hit.
"Ahhh!"
With blood streaming from her nose, Black Jeanne staggered backward.
She raised her free right hand.
Instantly, countless black spears erupted from the ground beneath them, transforming the battlefield into a forest of lances.
White Jeanne kicked off one of the spears with all her strength, using the recoil to launch herself high into the sky.
"Witch of Dragons... What I feel toward you isn't anger. It isn't rejection. And it certainly isn't hatred."
She pointed the tip of her banner toward Black Jeanne and declared,
"I shall defeat you... with sorrow."
"You counterfeit!! La Grondement Du Haine!!"
Black Jeanne unleashed her Noble Phantasm.
The burning black spears intertwined, forming a colossal black dragon that lunged toward the white saint, intent on swallowing her whole.
"Hahaha! Sorrow? How ridiculous! How pathetic! A mere leftover dares resist me?!"
Black Jeanne clenched her fist.
The countless black spears completely surrounded White Jeanne.
"Then prove it to me!"
"Can your so-called sorrow surpass my hatred... and my killing intent?!"
At that very moment, the prepared White Jeanne also activated her Noble Phantasm.
Suspended high in the air, she turned herself upside down and raised her banner high above her head.
"Luminosité Éternelle!"
White Jeanne's EX-rank Magic Resistance transformed directly into overwhelming physical defense.
Every black spear that struck the white barrier shattered into pieces.
Though the barrier appeared to be nothing more than a thin layer of light, it completely blocked both the black spears and the black flames.
"Come..."
"...my other self."
Jeanne aimed the tip of her banner directly at Black Jeanne below.
Then she simply allowed gravity to pull her back toward the earth.
This was the method Jeanne had devised for White Jeanne to defeat Black Jeanne.
White Jeanne would use her Noble Phantasm to withstand Black Jeanne's attack, and then let herself free-fall straight through Black Jeanne.
Normally, while Luminosité Éternelle was active, Jeanne herself couldn't move or attack while holding her banner aloft.
But being dragged downward by gravity didn't count as moving of her own accord.
It was the same logic as Mjolnir sitting inside an elevator.
The hammer wasn't moving itself—the elevator was moving it.
Wrapped inside a sphere of white light, Jeanne descended from the heavens.
As she fell, the holy light erased every trace of darkness in its path before crashing toward the black witch on the ground.
"Leftover——!!"
"Witch——!!"
Both Jeannes released every last ounce of magical energy they possessed.
This was the final clash.
BOOM!
The sphere of white light collided violently with the sphere of black darkness.
An enormous cloud of dust exploded outward, swallowing the entire battlefield.
"...Damn it! Cough! Cough, cough!"
Sitting at the edge of the set, Shinji was caught completely off guard and ended up with a mouthful of dust.
At that moment, his inner thoughts consisted entirely of colorful profanity.
Jeanne had never mentioned that her choreography would end with such an enormous smoke cloud.
If he'd known she was going to make such a spectacle, he would have positioned himself much farther away.
After all, he could watch everything through the monitors anyway.
It didn't matter where the director stood while giving instructions.
"Cough... Cut—cough cough!"
Shinji shouted through a megaphone.
Unfortunately, he was coughing so violently that everyone on set could hear nothing except someone sounding as though he had terminal tuberculosis.
No one could actually make out what he was saying.
"Cough cough! This take... cough ...is good! Cough cough cough!"
He desperately tried to suppress the coughing.
But coughing, yawning, and hiccups all belonged to the same category of bodily reflexes—once they started, they simply refused to stop.
"Cough cough! I... cough cough cough!!"
Listening to Shinji cough uncontrollably, Sakura frowned deeply.
"You know..."
"If you're really in that bad of shape, why don't we just hold the funeral banquet now?"
"Once everyone's finished eating, Onii-sama, you can rest peacefully in your grave."
"Cough! ...Get lost!"
If not for the awkward distance between them, Shinji swore he would have marched over and coughed a faceful of saliva directly at his little sister in revenge.
Unfortunately, they were standing too far apart.
Getting up and deliberately walking over just to do that would have been far too obvious.
"Jeanne."
On the set, Enkidu—still calmly standing there with a banner pole impaled straight through his abdomen—asked as if nothing had happened,
"You did that on purpose, didn't you?"
Jeanne blinked innocently.
"What are you talking about?"
"I have absolutely no idea what you mean."
Enkidu gave a slight shake of his head before casually grabbing the banner pole with one hand and pulling it out of his abdomen.
It looked horrifying.
But to Enkidu, it was nothing at all.
The wound in his stomach looked gruesome, but it hadn't actually damaged his Saint Graph.
For Servants, as long as their Saint Graph remained intact, healing was only a matter of time.
On top of that, Enkidu possessed the skill Perfect Form: A. As long as he was supplied with magical energy from the earth, his body would never collapse or be destroyed, granting him unparalleled regeneration against physical damage.
A single hole was nothing.
Even if Gilgamesh blasted him full of holes with the Gate of Babylon, as long as the Noble Phantasms carried no magical properties, Enkidu would be perfectly fine.
That was also one of the biggest reasons Gilgamesh was at such a disadvantage whenever he fought Enkidu.
His trademark Noble Phantasm barrage was practically useless.
As for adding magical attributes to his attacks...
That would go far beyond ordinary sparring.
. . .
Despite having been covered in dust himself, the King of Heroes maintained a cheerful smile.
After all... someone else has it even worse than he does.
Watching the still-coughing Shinji, Gilgamesh exchanged a glance with EMIYA.
Without saying a word, both of them smiled in perfect mutual understanding.
Serves him right.
"Cough, cough... A-achoo! Cough cough!"
'Damn it... why are the coughing and sneezing happening together? Don't tell me I'm catching a cold…'
Rubbing his nose, Shinji let out a disgruntled groan.
Regardless of how his physical condition turned out, though, at least the battle between the White and Black Jeannes had been successfully completed.
That alone made him extremely happy.
Especially because Saint Jeanne's performance had exceeded his expectations.
It could be said that the White Jeanne portrayed in the film perfectly embodied the image Shinji had envisioned—a woman who was both gentle and unwaveringly strong.
Through her performance, Jeanne naturally completed the emotional growth of her character, firmly resolving to ensure that humanity's future would continue forward, even if it meant sacrificing her own life.
"Absolutely... cough ...perfect... Jeanne, you were incredible... cough cough."
Still coughing intermittently, Shinji nodded in approval as he watched the footage replay on the monitor.
◇◆◇◆◇◆◇◆◇◆◇◆
Shinji wasn't the only one nodding in satisfaction.
So was Robert Iger of Disney.
The difference was that Robert wasn't on the set of Evil Dragons.
He was sitting inside one of Disney's own sound stages in North America.
Leveraging every connection they had, Disney had secured the opportunity to invest in Prologue, along with several future entries in the FGO film series.
However, Disney wasn't investing under its privileged status as an entertainment industry company.
Instead, it had chosen to invest simply as an ordinary corporation.
That distinction might seem minor, but it carried enormous significance.
By making that choice, Disney voluntarily gave up all of the special privileges normally afforded to industry insiders.
Instead, it accepted exactly the same treatment as any other outside investor.
In simple terms...
Disney's money now occupied the very bottom of the repayment priority list.
If the movies lost money, Disney's investment would be the first to absorb the losses.
If the movies made a profit, every other investor would receive their share first.
Only after everyone else had been paid would Disney receive anything.
In everyday language...
That made Disney the sucker.
In truth, Robert Iger had long since decided to treat the money invested in FGO as though he had simply thrown it into a pond.
At best, he'd hear a splash.
If Type-Moon actually paid dividends one day...
He'd consider it the equivalent of unexpectedly winning the lottery.
As for auditing the accounts?
The thought had never even crossed Robert Iger's mind.
Everyone in the entertainment industry played the same game.
Who didn't keep a separate set of books designed to fool outsiders?
Considering the enormous concessions Disney had made, it was hardly surprising that Shinji had agreed so readily to cooperate regarding the casting.
When someone as wealthy as Disney willingly stretched out its neck to be slaughtered, refusing to offer anything in return would have been unreasonable.
Naturally, Robert Iger's decision had met considerable resistance within Disney itself.
Quite a few executives believed he had gone insane.
How could anyone willingly sign such an obviously one-sided agreement?
Some even joked that Disney's "smiling Mickey Mouse" must secretly be a Type-Moon spy.
To that, Robert Iger had only one response:
"You people don't know a damn thing."
If Disney hadn't been willing to make such enormous concessions, why would Shinji Matou ever have allowed them into the project?
Why would he have agreed to loan out Type-Moon's immensely popular actors?
Did they seriously think he was running a charity?
Looking at the results now...
Robert Iger believed his decision had been an overwhelming success.
Up to this point, aside from subsidiaries of the Time Group, no film studio had managed to hire any of Type-Moon's contracted actors to appear in its own productions.
Their relatively infrequent screen appearances might make it seem as though Type-Moon's actors weren't particularly popular.
The reality was exactly the opposite.
They were among the most sought-after stars in the entire film industry.
The reason they rarely appeared elsewhere was simple: Shinji Matou kept a tight grip on their contracts, preventing other studios from poaching them or establishing influence over them.
In Robert Iger's eyes, the money Disney had invested in FGO could simply be regarded as additional appearance fees for those actors.
And it wasn't expensive, either.
Their popularity justified every penny.
Other studios couldn't hire them even if they were willing to pay.
"Ah... why can't Disney ever discover actors with looks as extraordinary as theirs?"
Watching Semiramis perform her audition onstage, Robert Iger couldn't help sighing.
It wasn't as though he hadn't tried to poach some of them.
He had.
Every one of them had firmly and unequivocally turned him down.
"I never imagined these actors would be so loyal to Shinji Matou..."
"Just how did he manage that?"
No matter how much he thought about it, Robert Iger couldn't figure it out.
Even so, "the Smiling Mickey Mouse" had his own solution.
If all these actors are tied to Shinji Matou...
Then why not just recruit Shinji Matou himself?
"Shinji Matou..."
"I will have you."
Robert Iger clenched his fist, looking absolutely determined.
"Ah-choo!"
Halfway across the world in Japan, Shinji let out an exceptionally loud sneeze.
"Dammit... don't tell me I really caught a cold..."
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Tn: I updated the story once every 2 days, but if you want to see more chapter of this story ahead of time, please go to my Patreon.
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