Note: This Chapter is Re-Translated on 6 / 15 / 2025
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Chapter 22: Shut Up, You're Distracting Me from the Movie
The battle between Archer and Lancer opened Fate/Stay Night with a bang, seizing the attention of every single person in the theater from the very first frame.
To the average viewer, the scene was nothing short of breathtaking—flashy effects, spectacular choreography, and mind-blowing visuals. But for someone like Aoko Aozaki, a seasoned magus, it was the intricate magical systems woven into the fight that caught her eye.
And then, there were a few rather unique audience members… whose focus was somewhere completely different.
"I disarmed you twenty times… twenty times!"
Cu Chulainn chuckled, elbowing EMIYA sitting beside him.
"Hey, Archer. Your projected weapons really suck when it comes to durability. If the Master hadn't yelled 'Cut,' I probably would've killed you right there, huh?"
Because of the Servants' ridiculously high combat prowess, Shinji didn't bother choreographing their fights in too much detail. He'd just give a rough outline of how the battle should go, then leave it to them to improvise.
So the reason Archer kept getting smacked around by Cu wasn't because of the script—it was simply because he couldn't win.
Even so, being mocked by that damn hound still rubbed Archer the wrong way.
Refusing to let his pride be stepped on, EMIYA crossed his arms and leaned back coolly in his seat.
"I'm a ranged class. And you're comparing close combat with me? Bit unfair, don't you think?"
"Wasn't you the one who decided to charge in swinging those two short swords?" Cu snorted. "You're an Archer, but you're always playing at being a Saber."
"That's because Master told me to."
Deadpan, unblinking—Archer's face was the very picture of calm, as if that were actually the truth.
"Mmm... mmph... mmph..."
On the other side, Arturia Pendragon was busy stuffing handful after handful of popcorn into her mouth.
"Their fight's going on a little too long," she grumbled, cheeks puffed out. "Hey, Rider. Tell me when my scene comes up, alright? I'm gonna focus on my snacks for now."
"You're noisy. Can't you just watch the movie quietly like a normal person?"
Rider shot her a side-glance, seriously contemplating whether to use her Mystic Eyes to turn this gluttonous king to stone—just for a bit of peace and quiet.
Fortunately, screen time was limited, and the Archer vs. Lancer fight didn't last much longer. Just as things were heating up, the brawl was interrupted by the unexpected arrival of one Shirou Emiya.
"Mmph... mmm... I'm coming up next... so excited... so excited..."
Now that the story was moving again, Arturia finally calmed down, turning her full attention to the big screen. She stopped her rapid-fire popcorn assault and switched to nibbling one kernel at a time, like a hamster savoring a treat.
Of course, aside from the female lead herself, not many in the theater were pleased to see the first big action scene cut so short.
"Hey, hey, let 'em fight a little longer!"
"Right when it was getting good?!"
"I wanna see what else that freak in the blue bodysuit can do!"
…
Hearing the audience's chatter, Udagawa Nao couldn't help but nod in satisfaction.
When people were eager to voice their opinions, it meant they were truly engaged with the movie. And that was always a good sign.
'Now then, what about these two beside me?'
She glanced to her side, where Aoko and Alice sat with strangely serious expressions, eyes locked onto the screen.
Aoko rested her chin on her hand, whispering, "Hey, Alice… is something like that even possible?"
She was referring, of course, to the scene where Rin uses a gemstone to bring a dying Shirou back from the brink.
"Hm... hard to say," Alice replied, her tone unusually grave. "In theory, yes. But no one's pulled off that level of magecraft in nearly a century. It's the kind of idea most magi wouldn't even consider. That Shinji Matou really is something else…"
As her words trailed off, a rare flicker of admiration lit up in her normally steady gaze.
Of course, Alice Aozaki knew the movies were fake. But for Shinji Matou to recreate such high-level magecraft purely through imagination… that spoke volumes about the depth of his magical understanding.
"..."
Listening to the two women's quiet conversation, Udagawa Nao could only respond with a stiff—but polite—smile.
'As long as you're enjoying yourselves, I guess...'
As the story progressed, the movie moved on to the next sequence: Shirou Emiya's desperate attempts to outwit Lancer inside his own home.
It was a relatively short scene—nothing like the bombastic Servant battles from earlier—but under Shinji's direction, even this calm-before-the-storm segment became a nail-biter.
The camera glided through the narrow corridors, shifting rapidly between a terrified Shirou and a relaxed, predator-like Cu Chulainn.
Just when the audience began to feel hope rising—he's gonna make it, he's gonna survive!—it came.
"Servant, Saber. I have come forth in response to your summons."
At that moment, in every single theater across Japan screening Fate/Stay Night, silence fell like a divine command. It was as if even time itself had stopped.
"So beautiful…"
Gasps of awe echoed through the room.
Bathed in silver moonlight, Arturia Pendragon made her grand entrance.
Thanks to Shinji's meticulous editing, her debut was nothing short of perfect. The stoic dignity on the young knight's face, the elegant contrast between her sharp gaze and gentle features—it all made her impossible to look away from.
So beautiful. So gallant. So unreal.
She wasn't the kind of girl who should exist in the real world. She was a dream, a knight pulled straight from the pages of a fairytale.
And it wasn't just the men. Plenty of women in the theater had their hearts stolen in that very instant.
"She's like… a prince on a white horse…"
Shinji heard that whisper from a girl in the front row, clear as day.
'Hmph. Just wait until they all start calling her 'Knight King-sama'…'
He glanced toward the back row.
That very same girl—who had just called Arturia a "prince"—was now watching the screen with intense focus. Her hands, however, were busily, gracefully, and very efficiently shoveling popcorn from a second jumbo tub into her mouth.
Watching the Knight King munching away like that in the middle of a theater filled with hushed reverence gave Shinji a strange sense of irony.
The way she ignored all the chatter around her and focused solely on her snacks gave her a certain aura.
Like she was silently declaring: "The joys and sorrows of humanity mean nothing to me. You're all just too noisy."
Compared to the rather composed Saber, the male Servant corner had devolved into chaos.
"HAHAHAHA! Your Noble Phantasm missed! That's what you get for forcing it with such garbage luck!"
Gilgamesh was practically slapping his thighs from laughing too hard.
"Tch. Not bad,"
EMIYA, ever the composed one, merely let a smirk tug at the corners of his lips.
Cu Chulainn growled awkwardly, "Says the guy who got one-shot by Saber the moment he showed up…"
"So loud…"
Rider muttered from her seat, visibly annoyed.
"I swear I'm never sitting near these idiots again."
But what Rider didn't realize was that the noisiest part of the theater wasn't the Servants around her, It was the sound system.
Especially with a movie like Fate/Stay Night, which practically thrived on explosions and over-the-top action.
The earlier schoolyard duel between Cu and Archer, and even Saber's graceful entrance at Shirou's home—those were mere warmups.
The real first major battle of the movie was about to begin: when Shirou and company, returning from the church, encountered Illyasviel and that monster of a man.
"■■■■■————!"
BOOM! BOOM! BOOM!
The berserker's roar and the deafening chain of explosions that followed shattered any remaining sense of calm.
The screen turned into chaos—wild, unrelenting, like a runaway train barreling straight into the audience's senses.
Even Udagawa Nao, who had already seen the movie several times, clutched her chest and exhaled in shock.
"…That was… intense…"
Udagawa Nao had seen Fate/Stay Night several times before—on a projector in a conference room, on a monitor in the editing suite—but this was her first time watching it on the big screen, with its overwhelming visuals and immersive sound design.
"…That kid is… really something."
The image of a certain boyish director flashed in her mind. With a complicated expression, Nao murmured her honest impression.
Beside her, Aoko Aozaki was absentmindedly stroking the armrest of her chair. That last scene had felt so real, she'd instinctively believed she'd been thrown straight onto the streets of Fuyuki by some kind of magecraft.
On screen, the battle still raged. Shirou and his allies were completely outmatched.
Saber couldn't hold a candle to Berserker in direct combat, and even Archer's sneak attack while wounded hadn't been able to stall him—it didn't even qualify as a proper distraction.
The tension climbed alongside the thundering BGM. Aoko felt like the movie had reached into her chest and clenched her heart tight.
And then, at the climax of the scene—
Shirou, trying to shield Saber, was sent flying by a brutal blow from Berserker.
Aoko felt like something had shattered inside her.
"That's brutal…"
"Wait, is this Shirou guy really the protagonist? The dude's been getting wrecked all night."
"Maybe summoning Saber came with this kind of price tag."
Gasps and murmurs spread through the theater. Most of the audience was genuinely concerned for Shirou's injuries.
Some, however—newly converted Saber fans—were… noticeably less sympathetic.
But no one reacted more dramatically than the boy's own adoptive father.
Kiritsugu let out a pained sigh and slapped a hand over his face.
"…This is exactly the kind of thing Shirou would do."
A resigned look crossed his face.
"He doesn't think anything through. In a situation like that, he should've tried to distract the enemy first—draw aggro, something. What's the point of saving her if you're just going to get killed doing it?"
"Now, now, don't be so hard on him."
Beside him, Irisviel watched the screen with the gentle, indulgent smile of a doting step-mother.
"To think that Shirou and Illya would end up getting along so well… it's such a lovely surprise, don't you think?"
'…Getting along?'
Kiritsugu turned his gaze back to the screen, where his bloodied foster son lay in a crumpled heap.
For a long moment, he simply stared, trying to figure out what exactly his wife meant by "getting along."
Shirou's injuries didn't just mark the end of the battle—they brought the movie's prologue to a close.
The screen dimmed and transitioned smoothly into the next arc: the Rider Route.
The tension loosened. The narrative gave the audience a moment to breathe.
And with that shift, a familiar face finally made his appearance—Movie Shinji.
If she hadn't met him at that party, Aoko would never have connected the slick, smarmy playboy onscreen with the calmly refined young man she'd spoken to that night.
The contrast in both mannerisms and tone was staggering.
Taking advantage of the slower pace, Aoko leaned back in her seat and commented, "I gotta say, I didn't expect the Matou heir to be this good at acting. He's actually… pretty decent."
"But of course. He's the prodigy of the magical world."
Alice Kuonji replied with evident pride, as if she were boasting about a close friend.
"Don't view him through the lens of a commoner's logic."
Aoko took a long sip of her soda and let out a very unladylike burp.
"Well, I won't deny his talent in magecraft. Grandpa wouldn't have sought him out otherwise— Huh?"
Onscreen, Shinji was strutting around like a villain straight out of a third-rate romance novel, arrogantly challenging Shirou to a duel while mocking him at every turn.
His deliberately exaggerated, almost theatrical performance made Aoko snort in amusement.
She nudged her friend.
"Hey, Alice, don't you think the Matou kid might be up to something shady?"
"Shut up."
Alice gave her a flat look of disapproval.
"Talking during a movie is extremely rude."
"…Since when do you like going to the movies?"
Aoko frowned. She clearly remembered Alice disliking crowded places like theaters.
"Since about 40 minutes ago. Problem?"
As she said that, Alice held up a glowing fingertip—softly illuminated by the magical energy gathering around it.
"Say another word, Aoko, and I'll make sure you can't speak again." (Using magecraft)
"…I get it, I get it."
Aoko shrank back in defeat, sulking as she took another sip of her soda.