Don't Call Me Master, Call Me Director

Shinji's stomach growled strangely once again.

Sensing something was wrong, Shinji stopped his strenuous movements. He looked down at his body and found his chest was unnaturally bulging.

"This..."

Squelch--

A tentacle, like a thorn, suddenly burst out of Shinji's chest!

A large amount of blood instantly dyed the entire room red.

"▲?▼??▼?!"

A mouth full of spikes poked its head out, letting out a horrifying sound at Shinji.

"Waaah--"

Shinji clutched his bloody mouth and fell onto the bed, his body convulsing uncontrollably.

In his last moments of consciousness, Shinji saw the tentacle monster emerging from his body, a black shadow, and...

"Hahahahahaha! Isn't this super cool?! Hahaha!!"

◇◆◇◆◇◆◇◆◇◆◇◆◇◆◇◆◇◆◇◆◇◆◇◆

"Super cool my ass----!!!"

Shinji jumped up from the sofa and yelled at the ceiling.

"Boss, are you okay?"

Seeing Shinji's pale face covered in cold sweat, Ophelia, standing nearby, asked with concern.

"Hoo... hoo..."

Shinji didn't answer his secretary's question. His mind calming down slightly, he leaned back onto the sofa, panting heavily as if he had just run a ten-kilometer race.

"Damn it..."

Shinji carefully touched his chest. Although nothing had actually broken through his chest, he could still feel the skin under his fingers burning as if someone had pressed a red-hot Tekkai against it.

"Boss, I think we should stop."

Ophelia grabbed Shinji's shoulders with both hands and looked at him with concern.

"Directly delving into your consciousness to observe possibilities is truly too dangerous," Ophelia advised anxiously. "A few more times like this and your mind will be in trouble."

Ophelia's Mystic Eyes, a type of Future Sight, had the ability to observe possibilities.

The scene Shinji had "dreamed" of just now was him using Ophelia's Mystic Eyes ability to observe future possibilities by delving deep into his soul.

To be precise, it was observing the possibilities after he summoned a new Heroic Spirit.

After all, some Heroic Spirits in FZ were more or less neurotic, to be more precise, like Lancelot and Gilles de Rais, the two lunatics.

Summoning these two according to their original classes would definitely not work. However, although these two had Spirit Foundations in other classes, they were both Sabers.

Even though Shinji had increased the number of summoning slots in Fuyuki City's Holy Grail system, due to the underlying Magecraft design.

The Holy Grail could only summon 7 Heroic Spirits at a time, with a maximum of one per class.

Considering that he might need the Holy Grail to summon Ruler, Pretender, and other strange Heroic Spirits in the future, Shinji had already asked his grandfather and Irisviel to modify the Holy Grail's summoning system.

But redesigning such a fundamental Magecraft system without changing the current situation was not a simple matter. The progress was as slow as DW's garbage production capacity.

In any case, Matou Zouken had clearly stated that this project would take years, so Shinji would have to wait.

Shinji himself could wait, but the FZ movie definitely couldn't.

With the time to summon Heroic Spirits rapidly approaching, Shinji could only use his little secretary's ability to see how he could proceed without messing things up.

It turned out that Master Shinji's actions were very correct. Although he could only see fragmented scenes, Second Master already knew how terrible his future summoning those two lunatics would be.

If he summoned Saber Gilles de Rais, it would be better. At most, the Matou residence would be flattened in the battle between Berserker Lancelot and Artoria.

The real trouble was summoning Caster Gilles de Rais. Shinji would either be possessed by a Sea Monster or killed by one. Various bizarre deaths made Second Master feel like he had experienced every possible death scene of a minor character in Alien.

Even worse, Gilles de Rais liked to let out all sorts of demonic laughter, which was simply mental pollution.

All day long, it was either "Cool," or "Cooool," or "Cooooool."

"Are you a Blizzard employee?!"

Shinji rubbed his head and complained.

"Boss? Are you sure you're okay?"

Hearing Shinji's nonsensical remark, Ophelia, afraid that his mental state was truly deteriorating, quickly hugged his shoulders again.

"It's fine, I'm just not very satisfied with the results of my observation just now. Ophelia, you don't need to blame yourself."

Shinji took his little secretary's fair and tender hands and pulled her delicate yet slender figure into his embrace.

"Don't worry, the observation ends here. I won't do it again for now," Shinji whispered into Ophelia's ear.

Observing possibilities in this way was indeed very dangerous because the damage from the fragments would feed back a portion of it into the body through Magic.

But this method of "observing the future" was also very practical. When he wanted to summon Heroic Spirits in the future, he could use this method to confirm whether he could summon the being he desired.

"You should do less of that."

Ophelia looked up at Shinji's bright eyes and said with a hint of dissatisfaction, "It's really dangerous..."

As she spoke, she pouted her rosy lips, seeming a little dejected, even a little angry.

Shinji's panicked expression just now had genuinely frightened her.

Ophelia had always longed to be needed, but if Shinji's way of needing her was to harm himself, she would be heartbroken.

To Ophelia, Shinji, who was the first to affirm her, was a very special existence.

But before Ophelia could voice her complaint, Shinji leaned in and gently kissed her forehead.

Unprepared, Ophelia instinctively leaned back. If Shinji hadn't been holding her soft waist at that moment, she might have fallen back onto the floor.

"Boss, you're too cunning..."

Ophelia said shyly, her face flushed.

"Well, because it's more effective this way~"

Shinji chuckled and gently patted Ophelia's head again.

"So, Boss, have you decided?"

"I have. Lancelot will be summoned as Saber, and the remaining one will be handled by Yan Qing or another actor."

If possible, Shinji actually didn't want Yan Qing to play the Marshal. This "extra king's" workload was already heavy enough; giving him another role with significant screen time would be a bit too much.

Shinji suspected that if this continued, Little Yi Ge might develop schizophrenia from him.

"I just wonder if Yan Qing will create multiple clones like Hundred Faces."

Teasing his own Heroic Spirits, Shinji reached out and opened the room door.

And then--

"Ouch!"

"Damn it! Stop pushing me!"

"Get off me!"

Looking at the girls sprawled on the floor in a tangled heap, Shinji asked coldly, "What are you doing?"

Rin gave an awkward smile, "Um... we were a bit curious."

Sakura pouted and explained, "Because you and Miss Farnese snuck into this room, it looked like you were doing something you shouldn't be."

Medusa pushed up her glasses, "I was just watching them. I tried to stop them, but I failed."

Only the innocent Artoria spoke the truth, "Because Master was making all sorts of screams in the room, they thought you were playing something exciting... Woo woo woo!"

Even though Sakura and Rin had quickly covered Artoria's mouth, Shinji still heard what she said.

"You guys have too much free time..." Shinji's eye twitched twice. "If you have so much free time, why don't you go and do your work? Have you finished the preliminary preparations for the shoot?"

"Got it!"

Hearing Shinji's words, the girls quickly got up from the floor and ran towards the other end of the corridor, leaving Shinji behind.

"These guys..."

Shinji really didn't know what to say about them.

After finalizing the summoning list, Shinji began the final preparations for the FZ movie shoot. He even set aside the promotional work for the still-showing FSN, leaving it entirely to the distribution company.

Shinji was very dedicated to his film. From props to set design to location scouting, he personally confirmed everything.

While he wouldn't supervise the entire process, he would meticulously review each stage, and only after his approval could it proceed to the next.

In addition to the filming itself, the script was also a focus of Shinji's pre-production efforts.

Just because commercial films don't emphasize logic doesn't mean they disregard it. For a film aimed at the general public, plot holes should be minimized.

To ensure the authenticity of the character dialogue, Shinji directly had the actors write their own lines based on the scenes in the script.

Of course, these lines still needed to be reviewed by Shinji after they were written.

After all, films are different from reality. Conversations in real life are relatively casual, but films have time constraints, and every line must serve a purpose, not be empty chatter.

Especially for commercial films like FZ, which have extensive plots, character dialogue requires careful consideration.

Thanks to his prior experience preparing for FSN, Shinji's preparations this time went very smoothly.

Before the summer of 2003 even ended, Shinji was ready to start filming.

Chapter 50: Fate Zero Begins Filming

Since the set on the Einsbern family's land was not yet completed, Shinji decided to start with the scenes inside the studio.

However, unlike the filming of FSN, Shinji's requirements for this shoot were significantly more stringent.

"Cut! Artoria, your expression is not right."

"Kiritsugu, your expression isn't cold enough. Let's do it again!"

"The camera just shook! Cameraman!! If you have Parkinson's like Grandpa Bi again next time, get out of the crew!"

Ever since they started filming FZ, the veterans in the crew had felt a completely different atmosphere compared to the last time they filmed.

Unlike FSN, where "good enough" was sufficient, Shinji on the FZ set had become a near-perfectionist. Any flawed shot would be rejected and reshot.

For example, a dialogue scene between Artoria and Kiritsugu Emiya was shot more than 10 times, yet Shinji was still not satisfied.

Kiritsugu didn't mind. After all, this scene was just Artoria complaining unilaterally, and he only needed to be a cold listener.

Although he and Artoria were the male and female leads with the most screen time in this ensemble drama, he had only spoken three sentences to Artoria throughout the entire filming.

Compared to Kiritsugu, Artoria was having a tougher time. While Heroic Spirits wouldn't get hoarse from talking non-stop, repeating the same lines without getting a passing grade was making her impatient.

This was just a simple scene where Artoria and Kiritsugu discussed countermeasures. It wasn't a complex action sequence, nor was it a pivotal dramatic scene. It shouldn't have been this difficult to film.

In fact, if judged by the standards of a finished film, this scene was already perfectly fine.

Shinji's constant "Cut!" calls were partly because he wanted the most perfect shot, and partly to put the veteran crew members in their place, letting them know his attitude towards FZ would be much stricter than FSN.

To achieve this, Shinji used the excuse of "starting production" to pull all the crew members already in Fuyuki City to the set, under the guise of "the first scene of production, everyone needs to participate together."

"Cut!"

Once again, he shouted "Cut!" with his megaphone, Shinji stood up from the director's chair, holding the monitor, and walked onto the set.

"Kiritsugu, Artoria, both of you have issues. Your expressions aren't quite right," Shinji said to the two actors.

Kiritsugu tucked his chin, a hint of helplessness flashing across his face.

Artoria, meanwhile, took a hamburger from an assistant and started eating it without smudging her makeup.

"What's wrong with me?" Kiritsugu asked, confused. "Aren't I supposed to be cold towards her?"