In truth, Akira didn't know why he had suddenly blurted out those words; perhaps it was just a simple moment of sentimentality.
So, he immediately said, "Please don't mind me, I just had a sudden realization."
"——Is that so?"
Hisashi had nothing more to say to that.
Although he wasn't familiar with the music industry, he knew that the price of a CD single wasn't low—it was almost double the price of a single tankobon.
Even with a rough conversion, a CD single selling a million copies was roughly equivalent to a tankōbon selling over two million copies.
Without a doubt, this was definitely not an achievement any singer could easily reach.
So, even in the music industry, this guy could achieve such outstanding results?
Is this guy even human?!
However, after pondering for a moment, Hisashi chose to respond firmly: "Even so, I believe that as long as Mochizuki-sensei continues drawing with this momentum, 'Fate/stay night' will surely become a masterpiece with sales of over 2 million per volume!"
So, what exactly was he being so firm about?
Akira didn't know whether to laugh or cry, but he still followed along and smiled, "Then I'll take your word for it."
Coming back to the point, there wasn't much they could actually do regarding the sales of the first tankobon volume, but Akira wasn't worried at all.
After all, what he was drawing was 'Fate/stay night'.
However, while they couldn't do much, there was plenty that Shonen Jump could do.
And so, time moved to October 12th, and issue 45 of Weekly Shonen Jump was released.
This week, 'Fate/stay night' once again graced the cover with a color page.
This cover page wasn't something he had drawn extra; instead, they had directly used the color illustration he drew for the cover of the first FSN tankobon.
At the same time, in the advertisement pages at the very front of Shonen Jump, an ad for the 'Upcoming Release of FSN tankobon Volume 1' was added in the most prominent position.
As the best-performing new series so far, it could be said that Shonen Jump was sparing no effort in promoting 'Fate/stay night'.
Additionally, a new situation arose in Chapter 14 of 'Fate/stay night' this week.
Following the previous chapter, after Emiya Shirou and Saber finished their discussion, the two went to the living room for breakfast.
At this point, Saber stated that since Emiya Shirou was still immature as a Magus, his memories might be peeked into by the enemy, so she couldn't tell him her true name for the time being.
Emiya Shirou had no objection to this.
Meanwhile, there seemed to be a problem with Emiya Shirou's Magic Circuits, making it difficult for her to obtain mana replenishment from him, so she could only eat to gain energy from the ingredients.
Since the Holy Grail War must avoid ordinary people, the daytime would be relatively safe.
Moreover, as a beautiful foreign girl, Saber was too conspicuous, so Emiya Shirou had her stay home to recover for the time being while he went out to buy supplies and ingredients.
However, just as he came out of the supermarket, he suddenly felt someone tugging at the corner of his clothes from behind.
When he turned around, he discovered that the person pulling him was actually Illya, who had attacked them last night!
"Great, Onii-chan, you're still alive."
"Illya—?!"
Emiya Shirou was startled.
But strangely, Illya at this moment was different from last night; she had absolutely no hostility or killing intent, looking just like an ordinary, cute young girl.
Illya just stared at him, and in this strange atmosphere, Emiya Shirou belatedly realized it might be rude to call her by her name directly, so he apologized.
But Illya didn't mind; instead, she asked for his name.
"——Tell me, your name."
"Eh?"
"Tell me Onii-chan's name. It's not fair that I'm the only one who doesn't know."
However, after he introduced his name, she suddenly hugged his arm very affectionately, acting spoiled like a child.
But occasionally during their conversation, she would inadvertently reveal a cruel side, casually mentioning words like 'kill.' At the same time, he learned that she seemed to have come specifically to meet him.
Regarding this girl who exuded an air of strangeness, he also felt inexplicably concerned, so he expressed his willingness to chat with her.
The two sides went to a nearby park to continue their conversation.
But this conversation yielded no useful information; most of the time, it was just Emiya Shirou talking about daily trifles, while Illya listened with great interest.
During this process, Emiya Shirou felt a sense of incongruity from the girl.
She seemed like a simple girl who knew nothing of the world, completely ignorant of daily life, yet she took the existence of the Holy Grail War for granted.
It was as if she had been raised since birth specifically for the Holy Grail War.
The two talked until the afternoon. Before the sun set, Illya stated that Berserker was about to wake up, so it was time to head back.
Until the very end, Emiya Shirou didn't know why Illya had come looking for him specifically, but he remembered something.
The name 『Einzbern』—it seemed it wasn't the first time he had heard it.
End of chapter.
This encounter between Emiya Shirou and Illya is content from the original FSN's Heaven's Feel route, and it was also shown in the Heaven's Feel movie trilogy.
However, since the early content of the FSN he was drawing was primarily based on the UBW route, he had adapted the encounter and dialogue here to a certain extent.
In fact, when he first considered drawing FSN, his idea was to focus on the UBW route while supplementing it with content from other routes for the adaptation.
Among them, because the style of the Heaven's Feel route—or rather, Matou Sakura's story—differed too much from the content of the other two routes, he didn't plan to include too much of the Heaven's Feel plot.
But Illya's existence was different.
Or rather, Illya was originally supposed to have her own separate route, but due to various reasons, she was ultimately merged into the Heaven's Feel route.
This also led to Matou Sakura's screen time being squeezed in the Heaven's Feel route, and the awkward situation where achieving a good ending required paying attention to Illya's affection points.
In any case, returning to Illya herself, her setting inherently embodied her unparalleled importance.
She was one of the contestants in the Holy Grail War, the Master of Berserker, as well as the vessel for the Lesser Grail, the daughter of Emiya Kiritsugu, and the elder sister of Emiya Shirou.
If one could treat Matou Sakura by referring to the Fate and UBW routes and handle her as a purple-haired background character...
Then, regarding Illya's existence, it was truly difficult to completely set her aside.
So after some careful consideration, he decided to include this part of the conversation to pave the way for future plot points.
However——
Regarding Illya's ending, based on the original content, he had actually thought of several directions.
Some of the plots were happy, and some were sad, but he believed they were all reasonable treatments; it was just that the final presentation and emotional impact would differ slightly.
Simply put, either let Illya live, or let Illya die.
But as for where exactly to lead her, he was still somewhat hesitant even now.
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