I'm Not A Master, I'm A Director
Chapter 467: Shinji — Kiyohime Would Make a Wonderful Wife... Just Not One You Should Marry
Shinji had no idea that a certain "Mickey Mouse" on the other side of North America couldn't stop thinking about him.
If he had known, he would have immediately cast a suggestion spell on Robert Iger: every time he thought about Shinji, he'd let out a thunderously loud fart.
The resulting public humiliation would continue forever—until the man never dared think about Shinji again.
Who the hell wants another grown man obsessing over them?
After confirming that he hadn't actually caught a cold, Shinji turned his attention back to filming Hundred Years' War of Evil Dragons.
Well... not all of his attention.
He was still paying close attention to how his Heroic Spirit actors were faring in Disney's auditions.
Robert Iger believed the production plans for his new film were flawless and that the secrecy surrounding the project was airtight.
Although auditioning actors had been asked to perform short excerpts from the script, how could anyone possibly deduce the overall story from such tiny scenes?
Robert Iger was convinced that the film he had chosen—and was now preparing—would become an unprecedented blockbuster.
After all, a story about an asteroid colliding with Earth and threatening the extinction of humanity had never been brought to the screen on such a scale.
"That Michael Bay really has some talent."
"If this movie succeeds, I'll have to cultivate him carefully."
Robert Iger thought his security measures were impeccable.
What he never imagined was that before the project had even progressed beyond the planning stage—before a single frame had been filmed—
Shinji Matou already knew the entire script.
The overwhelming advantage of being a world traveler revealed itself perfectly in this battle of wits.
That was exactly why even the wealthiest tycoons hated people with cheat-like advantages.
Those people simply didn't play by logic or fairness.
Even so, Shinji had no intention of acting like a spoiler and leaking the plot of Armageddon to the public.
For a Michael Bay film, whether people knew the story or not hardly mattered.
As long as Shinji understood the key milestones of its production schedule, he could accurately predict Disney's marketing strategy.
When the time came, launching a carefully targeted counter-campaign against Armageddon's advertising would be far more effective than simply spoiling the script.
To Shinji's delight, Cú Chulainn had successfully replaced Ben Affleck and secured the role of the film's second male lead.
The choice of female lead, however, left him somewhat disappointed.
Robert Iger seemed to favor the Empress, Semiramis, rather than the Gorgon sisters Shinji had hoped for.
Although the executives behind Armageddon were still arguing and no final casting decision had been made, the reports Cloris had sent back suggested that Medusa and her sister had little chance of turning things around.
"What a shame..."
"There goes my dream of piggybacking on Disney's marketing campaign."
Shinji let out a long sigh toward the heavens, lamenting the advertising budget he would no longer be able to save.
As for Cloris's other report—that the rookie director Michael Bay loved filming spectacular large-scale set pieces and was even planning to compete directly with Shinji's Fate films—
Shinji remained completely unfazed.
If "Explosion Bay" didn't make everything explode, would he still be Michael Bay?
"Whether he blows up an asteroid or blows up the entire Earth, it still can't compare to the disasters in FGO."
Strictly speaking, FGO wasn't a disaster movie.
Yet its large-scale catastrophes easily rivaled those of any disaster film.
That might not have been especially obvious in Hundred Years' War of Evil Dragons, but the later chapters were an entirely different matter.
Some of them even took place against the backdrop of humanity's complete extinction.
Even now, Shinji still felt that the idea of Earth's civilization disappearing simply because a group of fairies decided to fool around—as portrayed in Lostbelt 6—was rather absurd.
It felt almost too arbitrary.
Then again, considering how utterly self-centered those fairies were—quite literally to the point of being willing to die over their whims—perhaps humanity's destruction wasn't all that surprising after all.
"Thank goodness the fairies in my world aren't a bunch of lazy slackers."
Silently expressing his gratitude that those idiots hadn't abandoned their jobs, Shinji continued watching the monitor.
At the moment, the crew was filming Kiyohime's first real interaction with her "husband."
Although Kiyohime first appeared alongside Queen Marie and the others in the story, her own dedicated scenes didn't really begin until the group's camping sequence.
Her heartfelt conversation with Ritsuka wouldn't take place until midway through the final battle.
Before then, Kiyohime had already displayed some of the qualities of a devoted wife, but those mostly revolved around her cooking.
It was only after witnessing Ritsuka's willingness to risk his life for others during this part of the story that Kiyohime began to develop genuine affection for him.
And the moment she truly fell in love was when she transformed into a blazing dragon with her Noble Phantasm, only for Ritsuka to tell her that she looked cool.
The progression was undeniably clichéd, but with the limited runtime of a feature film, simply telling such a straightforward story clearly was already good enough.
Besides, movies where the protagonists fall in love at first sight and their romance skyrockets overnight were hardly uncommon.
The one thing Shinji could never understand, however, was why Kiyohime considered her dragon form to be ugly.
That form was awesome, wasn't it?
If Shinji had to choose, he'd gladly give up all of his current magecraft in exchange for Kiyohime's Noble Phantasm transformation.
Of course, that was assuming he could change back at will.
He hadn't reached DIO's level of enlightenment yet—being unable to enjoy life with beautiful women would be worse than death.
As for how Kiyohime addressed Ritsuka, Shinji thought about it for a long time before making a decision.
During the early part of the story, she would call him "Master."
Later, she would begin calling him "Husband."
The game's occasional use of "Lord Anchin" was rejected entirely.
To be honest, although Kiyohime often referred to her Master by the name of her former lover, she understood perfectly well that Ritsuka and Anchin were completely different people.
Her feelings for Ritsuka were independent.
They were a brand-new romance that began only after she became a Heroic Spirit.
Kiyohime was fundamentally different from those female Servants who already had established romantic partners yet still engaged in ambiguous flirtation with the Master because Type-Moon wrote them that way.
Of course, that wasn't the fault of the Heroic Spirits themselves.
It was simply the result of certain Type-Moon writers intentionally stirring up controversy among fans.
Especially that one romance-obsessed author who loved forcing completely random pairings together and then writing summoned Chaldean Servants as if they wanted to have it both ways.
Yes.
Sakurai Hikaru.
I'm talking about you.
Before being transmigrated, Shinji had never been particularly fond of Kiyohime.
Neither of her cards was especially powerful, and there were simply too many stronger alternatives.
He just couldn't appreciate her from a gameplay perspective.
So even though her voice actress was Risa Taneda, Taneda didn't voice only Kiyohime in FGO.
Didn't she also voice the original Mash Kyrielight and Marie Antoinette?
But after watching Kiyohime perform in front of the camera...
Shinji had no choice but to admit that the overwhelming "wife power" of Chaldea's yandere queen was absolutely terrifying.
No wonder there were fans who filled every one of their support lists with Kiyohime.
Kiyohime's incredible performance came entirely from simply being herself.
Nowadays, when people talk about yanderes, they focus almost exclusively on the "yandere" part.
But what truly makes a successful yandere character isn't merely the "yandere."
It's whether she possesses enough of the "dere."
Only when the affectionate, loving side is convincing does the obsessive side become emotionally compelling.
Otherwise, she just comes across as an unreasonable lunatic.
Kiyohime captured that loving side perfectly.
One could even say she wasn't acting at all.
Simply through the unique aura of overflowing wife-like devotion she naturally possessed, she made people want to become her husband.
Among all the Heroic Spirits in FGO, there were plenty with "married woman" aesthetics and plenty who technically possessed wife attributes.
But when it came to making someone genuinely feel "this is wife material," only Kiyohime—and perhaps Tamamo-no-Mae and Anastasia—truly reached that level.
Everyone else stopped at "girlfriend."
They never quite became "wife."
Oh? Raikou?
That's a mom.
Not a wife.
"Maybe… the historical Anchin was actually into men."
Shinji quietly muttered the joke under his breath, making sure Kiyohime couldn't hear him.
After all, although Kiyohime had been successfully summoned, her affection level hadn't been raised nearly enough.
If she overheard that and thought he was deliberately insulting Anchin...
Shinji had absolutely no desire to cosplay as the Saint of Orlean and burned to ash.
"Mmm..."
On the monitor, Ritsuka—played by Charlemagne—let out a frustrated groan.
According to the script, Fafnir's fiery breath had just struck the French army's rear artillery positions, completely destroying the formation and causing countless casualties.
Having witnessed the true brutality of war for the very first time, Ritsuka found himself unable to accept the outcome.
"We have to retreat for now!" he shouted.
"If we don't rescue them, every soldier in the French army will die!"
Tap
Kiyohime gently pressed the tip of her folding fan against Ritsuka's forehead.
"Every one of those soldiers chose to enter this battle of their own free will."
"They all possess the same resolve to sacrifice themselves that we do."
Her expression was solemn as she admonished him.
She looked every bit like a wise and virtuous wife patiently guiding her husband back onto the proper path after he had made a mistake.
"Master of Chaldea..."
"Do you understand how foolish your decision to attempt a rescue would be?"
"But..."
Ritsuka still couldn't bring himself to accept it.
Unlike in Fuyuki City, where Ritsuka had only witnessed the aftermath of the city's destruction rather than living through it, the cruelty he experienced there paled in comparison to what he was seeing now.
This time, in France, Ritsuka was watching countless people being slaughtered...
...without reason,
...without hesitation,
...and without meaning.
He simply couldn't accept it.
"Up until now, all those sacrifices... including hers..."
Kiyohime spoke with solemn conviction.
"We are standing here precisely so that none of those sacrifices will have been in vain, aren't we?"
On the surface, a gentle, devoted wife shouldn't be speaking so firmly to her husband.
Shouldn't she simply go along with whatever he wanted?
Yet Kiyohime's performance had the opposite effect.
Rather than diminishing her image as the ideal wife, the seriousness on her face only emphasized her virtue and wisdom.
"A truly good wife shouldn't blindly obey her husband," Shinji nodded repeatedly as he watched. "She should make sure her husband does the right thing."
"Kiyohime..."
"She'd definitely become an excellent wife."
"If I could, I'd almost want to marry her myself."
"But you wouldn't actually do it, would you?" EMIYA let out a cold, teasing laugh.
"Of course not."
Shinji answered without even a moment's hesitation.
"Kiyohime-chan is a 100% perfect wife."
"But if you married her, she'd keep you under constant supervision."
"And if you ever cheated on her—even once—you'd probably lose your life."
"A wife that troublesome?"
"I'll pass."
"As expected, Shinji, you're 100% human trash." EMIYA looked at him with unconcealed disdain.
"For everyone's sake, don't ever get married."
"Just prepare to grow old alone."